How others will see it. Spellbound is famous for its eccentric dream sequence, which features set designs from surrealist artist Salvador Dali. It is also noted for its temerity of pointing a huge gun at the camera and firing.
Both of these things only occupy a few minutes of screen time. Otherwise, we have a romance and mystery with an unusually challenging script. The two leads are certainly attractive, and while we feel little bond with the disturbed Peck, we feel sorry for mothering Bergman, who is certain that her new boyfriend is really just a swell guy suffering from a completely solvable "guilt complex."
How I felt about it. The phrase "guilt complex" pops up too often in Spellbound. It is Hitchcock's McGuffin, the logical support for whatever nonsense transpires in the dramatic story. All of Peck's odd behavior can be traced back to his "guilt complex," and once the cause of this is revealed, he's going to be the Perfect Man.
In truth, everybody has dozens if not hundreds of little quirks, both major and minor. Peck believes he killed Dr. Edwards because it is consistent with the childhood death of his brother, an accident for which he was responsible. Guilt for one death leads to guilt for another, but this still doesn't explain the amnesia.
Or the story's needless complication of making Dr. Edwards' accident a murder, committed by someone who hires back the one person most motivated to solve it, despite her dereliction of duty and scandalous association with a convicted murderer. And he tells her he knew Dr. Edwards, a slip certain to make her ponder things. Well, maybe he has a "guilt complex" too, which would also explain his suicide.
If you can swallow Peck's mental collapse whenever he sees dark lines on white, and learned Dr. Bergman's deeply emotion response to this, there's still the problem of the script itself, even if it is written by acclaimed screenwriter Ben Hecht.
The difficulties include an opening scroll of subtitles that implies psychiatrists are exorcists, and dream analysis by doctors that amazingly makes the instantaneous correct interpretation of each and every facet of a dream.
Then there's the character of Dr. Fleurot, who openly flirts with Bergman yet approves of her sudden torrid romance with new (and unimpressive) director Peck. Dr. Fleurot has a curious early conversation with Bergman that includes this snippet:
Fleurot: You approach all your problems with an ice pack on your head.
Bergman: Are you making love to me?
Fleurot: I will in a moment. I'm just clearing the ground first. I'm
trying to convince you that your lack of human and emotional
experience is bad for you as a doctor.
What? Bergman makes an outrageous verbal pass at Fleurot, who responds by launching into a critique of Bergman as a doctor, who like all people have had plenty of life experiences. Presuming she wasn't raised in a convent. Non sequitors cannot pass for dialogue.