Whirlpool

Ann is the wife of a psychoanalyst; she has a comfortable life and a habit she has told nobody about. She is caught stealing in a shop. At that moment David Korvo steps in, talks the store manager round and gets her out. Korvo works with hypnosis. When Ann says she cannot sleep he offers to help. The sessions begin. One night she finds herself at the scene of a murder and does not remember how she got there. All the evidence points at her, and her only witness is the man who hypnotised her. Otto Preminger directs. The film is adapted from a novel by Guy Endore. Gene Tierney, Jose Ferrer, Richard Conte and Charles Bickford are in the cast. It is an American production. The matter it treats is being believed; nobody believes anything the woman says, including her husband. The film uses hypnosis as a device of mystery and pays no attention to scientific accuracy. Jose Ferrer plays the character polite and persuasive; the threat never raises its voice. The narrative gives the woman's stealing not as a crime but as a symptom. Her husband's profession is the irony of the story; the man understands his patients and not his wife. The film is shot in the language of noir; night, shadow and confined space. Preminger keeps the narrative cold and stays out of melodrama. The ending exposes the culprit in a single scene. Its limit is plausibility; the plot leans too hard on the hypnosis and some turns come easily. Who it is for: viewers who like classic noir and psychological thrillers. Who it is not for: it is dated, the plot is forced, and the ending hurried.