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Encyclopedia of Fantasy (1997)
Bewitched [1945]

Tagged: Film.

US movie (1945). MGM. Pr Jerry Bresler. Dir Arch Oboler. Screenplay Oboler. Starring Henry H Daniels Jr (Bob Arnold), Edmund Gwenn (Dr Bergson), Horace McNally (Eric Russell), Phyllis Thaxter (Joan Alris Ellis). 65 mins. B/w.

Wealthy daughter Joan is haunted by her alter ego Karen, who is sexually precocious where Joan is prim, and who eventually murders Joan's quondam fiancé Bob. Lawyer Eric, for whom both Joan and Karen have fallen, successfully defends Joan at the trial; but she, discovering the truth, confesses guilt before the verdict is given. Condemned, she is spared at the last moment when Dr Bergson hypnotizes both Twins individually, persuading Karen to die and thereby fulfilling the death sentence. A trim Psychological Thriller, Bewitched, made at a time when the condition now called Multiple Personality belonged more to the occult than to science, is a fantasy that would, some decades later, have been recast as sf. [JG]



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