Home video
- Freudian thriller has had many distinct home video transfers
- Unfortunately, all are flawed in some way and most omit red tinting
- Some releases mistakenly add misidentified “overture” and “exit” music
- Composer Miklós Rózsa recorded it especially for promotional purposes
- 2023 restoration is due on home video; hopefully this one will get it right
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Spellbound: Writing on a Classic; Making of a Masterpiece; Collectors Guide, Pt 2: Home video, 3: Soundtrack, 4: Re-recordings, 5: Concerto
Italian 1954 re-release poster by Anselmo Ballester (alt, alt); its title, Io ti salverò, translates as “I will save you”. Interestingly, it uses green spiral imagery to evoke mental torment, four years before Saul Bass and Vertigo made it iconic.
Contents
- Preserved transfers
- 1999 restoration
- 2008 remaster
- 2023 restoration
- Screenshots
- Bootlegs
- Related articles
Preserved transfers
Hitchcock/Dalí by Annamaria Ward, 2023
The four Selznick-related films directed by Hitch – Rebecca, Spellbound, Notorious and The Paradine Case – are often packaged together due to their current shared ownership. Commencing in 1983, Spellbound had a 20-year international run on VHS and was also released on various LaserDiscs in the US, UK and Japan from 1983–1994. All feature very similar, purely B&W, standard-definition transfers with slightly windowboxed credits, which are in decent shape but leave room for improvement. Despite being restored in 1999 alongside the other Hitchcock-Selznicks, these older transfers persisted on DVD everywhere until 2008 – with just one notable exception. Here are all of the first wave of discs:
- US: Anchor Bay DVD (1999)
- UK: PT Video 4-DVD Hitchcock (2001)
- Prism Leisure DVD (2004), also in 4-DVD AH Box Set
- Fremantle DVD (2007), also in 4-DVD H Collection and newspaper giveaway
- Italy: 01Distribution DVD (2005), also in 4-DVD AH Collection
German DVD
- Germany: EuroVideo DVD (2002), also in 3-DVD and 5-DVD H Collection
- Süddeutsche Zeitung DVD (2012)
- France: Aventi DVD (2005), also in 2-DVD w/Notorious and 4-DVD AH Édition Collector
- Spain: Filmax DVD (2000)
All these DVDs and the German disc’s dates from its belated post-war release. Like so many wartime Hitchcocks and other foreign films, Spellbound wasn’t released in many countries until fighting had ceased, especially in Europe. It wasn’t seen in Germany until the end of February 1952, when the DVD’s optional dub was recorded, but even so, original publicity materials are still quite scarce. Here are the Illustrierte Film-Bühne, Nr. 1468 and Das neue Film-Programm, and three posters emphasising the couples’ happiness rather than anguish; even its German title, Ich kämpfe um dich (I’m fighting for you) conveys optimism.
- Netherlands: A-F/WWC/DFW DVD (2003), also in 4-DVD H Collection
- Sweden: Jupiter/Scanbox DVD/alt (2002), also in 3-DVD AH Collection
- Australia MRA DVD (2004)
- Japan: JVC DVD (2000, reissued 2002)
Most of my notes for Rebecca’s original releases regarding extras and so on also apply to this bunch but beware the Netherlands DVD as it’s been completely bodged in the mastering, with a VHS-quality NTSC-PAL transfer. Thankfully, none of the other Selznicks they issued are thus afflicted. Note too that initial copies of the barebones US disc are (rightly) missing the ‘overture’ music detailed below and (wrongly) missing the red tinting in that scene. Both were added for its second pressing, so one step forward, one step back.
1999 restoration
- US: Criterion DVD (2002), also in 6-DVD Wrong Men and Notorious Women: Five H Thrillers 1935–1946
“Spellbound was digitally transferred from a new 35mm internegative made from a combination of the Academy Film Archive’s 35mm nitrate print and David O. Selznick’s 35mm acetate print. The soundtrack was restored and preserved from an original 35mm nitrate print in the collection of the Academy Film Archive, and David O. Selznick’s 35mm acetate print. 35mm acetate track positives of the “Overture” and “Exit” music were preserved by The Museum of Modern Art. New 35mm magnetic analog masters and DA-88 digital masters were created utilizing Sonic Solutions noise reduction software.
Consummate showman David O. Selznick had entrance and exit music prepared for the premieres of many of his most famous films. While it is unlikely that such overtures and exit music would have been heard outside of the premiere at first-run theaters in major cities, they do survive. Restorer Scott MacQueen has discovered and restored the extra music for a number of Selznick classics including Since You Went Away, The Wild Heart, and Duel in the Sun (with two overtures). According to MacQueen, the overture and exit music to Spellbound appear to be original arrangements, unique cues, and not simply lifts from the underscore as the Duel in the Sun and The Wild Heart overtures are. The Criterion Collection is grateful to Mr. MacQueen for finding and restoring this valuable material and we are proud to present it here for the first time in any home video format.” – Criterion DVD (2002)
Life magazine advert
Well, the thought was there but it turns out MacQueen misidentified the added music and it shouldn’t have been included with the film. Whoops. From Intrada’s impeccably researched notes accompanying their 2007 re-recorded soundtrack CD:
“Mystery has long surrounded the use of “Overture” and “Exit Music” cues now associated with the film. Upon thorough examination of all associated materials [the Rózsa and Selznick archives], it appears Rózsa scored neither overture nor exit music per se. Prior to the film’s première he did, in fact, create a lengthy sequence which he entitled “The Spellbound Transcription.” This piece included a patchwork of the major themes of the score, which he recorded in segments that could be edited into sequences for a variety of special film advertising and promotional needs at that time. Portions of this recording were chopped into an overture and exit sequence [probably by Selznick and his sound editor after Rózsa had left the project], and used at the original première of the film. They were subsequently dropped from [theatrical] prints.”
It’s abundantly clear when listening to the “overture” that it’s a cobbled-together, cut-and-paste job; you can actually hear the individual cues fading in and out. It may have (just about) passed muster for the premiere but it isn’t of Rózsa’s own design and it’s inconceivable he would have wanted it permanently associated with the film.
Criterion’s restored DVD has superior A/V to the preserved discs, with far more detail and natural grain. However, note it has another, more minor, flaw: MacQueen’s 1999 restoration accidentally repeats a brief shot when Dr. Brulov asks Dr. Petersen to see her notes, and takes out his pencil from his jacket twice. Though it wasn’t noticed in time to be edited from this DVD, as far as I can tell it hasn’t been repeated in any subsequent releases. Extras consist of an audio commentary by film studies professor Marian Keane, the 1948 radio adaptation (59:52), an audio interview with composer Miklos Rózsa (28:22), “The Fishko Files: The Theremin” radio programme (2002, 7:08) and the original trailer (2:05). Wrapping up, there are around 200 photos and 150-odd pages of text notes concerning all aspects of the film, and a 20-page booklet with these two essays:
- Selznick International’s Spellbound – Leonard J. Leff
- Spellbound: Love and Psychoanalysis – Lesley Brill
2008 remaster
US DVD
- US: MGM DVD (2008), also in 3-DVD MGM 90th Anniversary and 8-DVD AH Premiere Collection/warning
- MGM BD (2012), also in 3-BD AH: The Classic Collection
- France: Carlotta Films BD and DVD (2018), also in 4-BD/1-DVD and 5-DVD AH: Les Années Selznick
- Brazil: Versátil 3-DVD/6-film O Cinema de H/alt (2015) info
This transfer, a HD digital scan and clean-up of the 1999 restoration, is a vast improvement overall but somehow manages to introduce some new issues as there are a few frames missing in a handful of places. The resulting random jumps in the action are very brief and hardly noticeable but at one point a whole word of Bergman’s dialogue is removed: “…[before] the police find him…” The absent frames are present in the original negative and all pre-2008 releases, so this is definitely a fault of the remaster itself. Note that only the US and Brazilian discs include the erroneous overture; the French correctly omit it.
All releases contain a generous selection of extras, especially the US discs that, apart from the 1948 radio adaptation and trailer, don’t replicate anything from Criterion’s DVD and are all unique. They are an audio commentary by film historians Thomas Schatz and film lecturer Charles Ramirez Berg, four featurettes and interviews totalling 55½ minutes and, with the DVD only, extensive photo galleries and a six-page booklet.
The French discs have a “Subliminal” featurette (2018, 16:09) with film historian-documentarian Laurent Bouzereau, an excerpt from the Hitchcock/Truffaut interviews (23:30) and the trailer. For the feature itself, there are optional French subtitles and the 1948 postwar release dub. The box set has a bonus DVD with 155 minutes’ worth of extras more generally covering the Hitch-Selznick partnership and a luxurious 300-page, slipcased hardback book. DVDClassik’s extensive review of the French set, with screenshots, is well worth a look.
The Brazilian set has 130 minutes of extras on all its films, including the “Dreaming with Scissors: Hitchcock, Surrealism and Salvador Dalí” featurette (2008, 20:21) carried over from the MGM discs.
Carlotta’s lavish box set
2023 restoration
In 2023, Spellbound had a 4k restoration “from a 35mm nitrate composite print and a 35mm acetate composite fine grain” so watch this space, as Criterion are doubtless eyeing it up for their long-awaited HD discs.
Now Showing: worldwide screenings
Screenshots
In addition to those at DVDClassik’s extensive review, there are more comparative screenshots courtesy of the invaluable Hitchcock Zone, Caps-holic and below:
US US Anchor Bay, Criterion Collection 02 | MGM BD
- Bergman: AB, CC | MGM
- Duo: AB, CC | MGM
- Peck: AB, CC | MGM
- Note: AB, CC | MGM
- Shot: AB, CC | MGM
- Sign: AB, CC, | MGM
US Criterion Collection 02, UK PT Video (+2)
Bootlegs
Though far fewer than the literally countless bootlegs of Hitch’s British films, there are still many rip-offs. Perhaps worst of the lot, setting the bar very low, are the German CF Classic and FNM DVDs with their unwatchable, sub-VHS quality transfers and muffled German dub only. In addition to those, as with the countless international boots of Hitch’s British films, Germany simply has too many on BD and DVD – dozens – to list here. The majority come from Great Movies and WME but those are just two names from the same prolific pirates, who also go under many others. Like animals eating each others’ faeces, their BD and DVD have also been repackaged by “limited edition” scammers Inked Pictures.
- Brazil: Classicline/reissue+BD/DVD, Continental/box/box
- Chile: Cinematekka/box, Emerald
- Germany: above
- Italy: A&R Productions, Ermitage, Quadrifoglio
- Spain: Creative Films, IDA Films BD-R/box, Regia Films, Resen BD-R/ltd ed, Suevia Crin Ediciones
Fair enough, Rhonda, but especially bootleggers, right? US MGM BD screenshot.
Spellbound: Writing on a Classic; Making of a Masterpiece; Collectors Guide, Pt 2: Home video, 3: Soundtrack, 4: Re-recordings, 5: Concerto
Related articles
This is part of a unique, in-depth series of 150-odd Hitchcock articles.
