alfred hitchcock. ingrid bergman. gregory peck. salvador dali.
basically this movie was kind of….not so great. i mean the writing…oh god the writing…let me sum it up for you with the following scene:
fake dr. edwards/peck and dr peterson/bergman are off on a picnic falling in love at first site, ok? and in order to fully illustrate how they are now in love, he offers her a choice between a ham sandwich and a liverwurst sandwich. and she, she in the most romantic, lyrical, longing, sentimental voice possible says,
“liiiveerrwuuurst.”
it was painful to watch this. my explanation for how this fits into the plot is the following. ham is sane. liverwurst is insane. she chooses the insane choice. peck is playing a schizophrenic guilt complex insane man. she’s rather “love/live” with the “worst” choice possible than live alone with plain old ham, boring spinsterhood.
however the dream sequence which is gorgeously art directed by salvador dali is incredible. and if you only watch 5 minutes of this movie, please let it be those 5 minutes. fucking insanely incredible.
and one last thing. why is it that hitchcock’s supposed twist endings are always so flagrantly see through? it is so patently obvious who the killer is the entire movie that i was vaguely disgusted with the whole buildup to the point where ingrid bergman says, while clucthing peck’s head to her bosum, “it was an accident! you didn’t kill your brother! it was just a childhood accident!” you stupid psychological medical nonsense.
when i said one last thing, i meant wait for it there’s going to be another one. there’s this one line. brilliant. “women make the best psycho analysts. until they fall in love, and then they make the best patients.” ha ha ha! what a knee slapper, you silly old man. just you sit down and let me make you some coffee. with an egg in it. (WTF?!!)