Spellbound (1941)

Country of Origin: UK
Year of Production: 1941
Running Times: 82 mins
Format: black and white     35mm
Ratio: 1.37:1
Sound: mono

CREDITS

PRODUCTION
Production Company: Pyramid Amalgamated Productions
Producer: R. Murray-Leslie
Associate Producer: Keith C. Drayson
Production Manager: E.J. Holding

SCRIPT
Script: Miles Malleson
Books: The Necromancer by Robert Hugh Benson

DIRECTION
Director: John Harlow

PHOTOGRAPHY
Director of Photography: Walter Harvey
Camera Operator: Guy Green

EDITING AND POST-PRODUCTION
Editor: Frederick Wilson

MUSIC
Music: George Walter

SOUND
Sound: John Dennis

MAKE UP AND COSTUMES
Gowns: Worth Ltd

DESIGN AND SET CONSTRUCTION
Settings: Wilfred C. Arnold

LOCATIONS
Studio: Worton Hall Studios, England, UK

CAST
Derek Farr (Laurie Baxter)
Vera Lindsay (Diana Hilton)
Hay Petrie (Mr Cathcart)
Felix Aylmer (Mr Morton)
Frederick Leister (Mr Vincent)
Marian Spencer (Mrs Stapleton)
Diana King (Amy Nugent)
W.G. Fay (Johnnie)
Winifred Davis (Mrs Baxter)
Enid Hewitt (Lady Laura Bethel)
Gibb McLaughlin (Gibb)
Cameron Hall (Mr Nugent)
Irene Handl (Mrs Nugent)
Hannen Swaffer (himself)

PLOT SUMMARY

Laurie Baxter is devastated when his working class fiancé Amy dies. Less appalled is Baxter's snobbish mother who wants him to marry the nicely middle class Diana Hilton instead. Driven increasingly mad by his grief, Baxter visits a spiritualist, Mr Vincent, a vaguely sinister figure surrounded by a cadre of the desperate and the faddish. Falling under Vincent's spell, Baxter becomes increasingly isolated from his mother and rejects the attentions of Diana. Vincent stages a séance during which he apparently contacts Amy, promising Baxter that he will soon be able to materialise his lost love completely. Despite the intervention of his lecturer Morton and an anti-spiritualist theologian, Cathcart, Baxter continues to visit Vincent and sees what he believes to be Amy materialising before him. In the aftermath he becomes increasingly aggressive and Cathcart announces that Baxter may be possessed by a "personality - strong, depraved and whose purpose is to deprave." In a delirious climax, Cathcart performs an exorcism and casts out the offending spirit.

NOTE

Spellbound is not to be confused with the Hitchcock film of the same name - instead, this John Harlow film is a continuation of British cinema's ongoing interest in spiritualism. What marks Harlow's film as different however is that it is a virulent anti-spiritualist diatribe, opening with a warning to audiences about the supposedly controversial subject matter of the film they about to see. It seems an extraordinary amount of energy to expend on denouncing a harmless if somewhat eccentric religious sect who, so far as one can tell, have never actually does anyone any harm. In Harlow's polemic, spiritualism is constructed as a force for evil, a conduit for paranormal forces and as a the destroyer of families. It equates spiritualism with witchcraft, Vincent being painted as a Svengali figure with hints of Alesiter Crowley about him.

AVAILABILITY

USA
Theatrical Distributors: PRC
Video Distributors: Sinister Cinema

CENSORSHIP HISTORY

USA
Rating: unrated

TIMELINE

1941
May
10: UK – theatrical release

1945
February
10: USA – theatrical release

1954
August
28: USA - television broadcast (on WABD)

ALTERNATIVE TITLES

Ghost Story - US title
Passing Clouds
The Spell of Amy Nugent - US title

REFERENCES

MAGAZINES

Kinematograph Weekly no.1761 (16 January 1941) (UK)
review

Kinematograph Weekly no.1872 (4 March 1943) (UK)
review

Kinematograph Weekly no.2056 (12 September 1946) (UK)
review

Monthly Film Bulletin vol.8 (1941) p.2 (UK)
credits, synopsis, review

Today's Cinema vol.56 no.4518 (15 January 1941) (UK)
review

Today's Cinema vol.60 no.4846 (2 March 1943) (UK)
review

KEYWORDS

exorcisms, ghosts, séances, spiritualism, possession, spiritualists, theologians

Last Updated: 1 January, 2009