Gloucestershire Echo (31/Jul/1946) - Study of Human Psychology

Details

• article: Study of Human Psychology
• newspaper: Gloucestershire Echo (31/Jul/1946)
• keywords: Alfred Hitchcock, Ben Hecht, Gaumont British Picture Corporation Limited, Gregory Peck, Hilary St. George Sanders, Ingrid Bergman, Michael Chekhov, Rhonda Fleming, Spellbound (1945)

Article

STUDY OF HUMAN PSYCHOLOGY

Psychiatry seems to be the favourite theme of the film world just now. First "Lady in the Dark,". then "The Seventh Veil," and now "Spellbound" have all attempted to deal with the problems of human psychology and give the public an insight into the aims and methods of psychoanalysis.

"Spellbound," which will be showing at the Gaumont next week, and which was screened on Tuesday at a special Press preview, has been adapted by Ben Hecht with his usual skill from the Francis Beeding novel, and directed by Alfred Hitchcock with suspense and imagination, but hardly his customary tautness. The acting is uniformly excellent, with Ingrid Bergman playing the psychiatrist who risks her career, and indeed her life, for love of her mentally deranged and potentially homicidal patient, played by Gregory Peck.

Peck, Hollywood's latest heart-throb, gives a performance that should gain him still more devoted fans, but for ourselves commend us Michael Chekhov's brilliant study of the old psychiatrist, and Rhonda Fleming's excellent portrayal of the vicious and neurotic nymphomaniac.