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Directed by Alfred Hitchcock, Spellbound (1945) begins when Dr. Anthony Edwardes (Gregory Peck) arrives at a therapeutic community mental hospital in Vermont to replace its elderly director, Dr. Murchison (Leo G. Carroll). Headstrong psychoanalyst Dr. Constance Petersen (Ingrid Bergman), who also works there, soon notices that Edwardes has a peculiar phobia about sets of parallel lines against a white background. As Constance and Edwardes begin to fall in love with each other, he confides to her that he killed the real Dr. Edwardes and then assumed his identity. He suffers from massive amnesia and does not know who he is. Believing that the man is innocent and suffering from a guilt complex, Constance resolves to use her psychoanalytic training to break down his amnesia and discover what truly happened.    Gregory Peck, Ingrid Bergman and Michael Chekhov in Spellbound . To protect him, Constance takes the impostor — calling himself «John Brown» — to the New York home of he...

This week on «Film Friday,» I have decided to celebrate both Gene Kelly's 104th and Van Johnson's 100th birthdays by telling you about one of the only two pictures they made together. Incidentally, this was the first Van Johnson film I ever saw.   Directed by Vincente Minnelli, Brigadoon (1954) begins when New Yorkers Tommy Albright (Gene Kelly) and Jeff Douglas (Van Johnson) become lost in the highlands of Scotland while on a hunting trip. Upon the clearing of the mists, they discover Brigadoon, a village that only materializes once every century for only a day. If any villager ever leaves, the enchantment will be broken for all and the whole town will vanish forever. If, in contrast, an outsider wishes to stay, then they must prove to love someone in the village strongly enough. Cynic Jeff finds himself increasingly bored with the town's peculiarities, while dreamer Tommy falls in love with both Brigadoon and village lass Fiona Campbell (Cyd Charisse), whose younger s...

Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer's «Golden Boy,» also known as Van Johnson, was born Charles Van Dell Johnson on August 25, 1916 in Newport, Rhode Island. He was the only child of Loretta (neé Snyder), a housewife from a Pennsylvania Dutch background, and Charles E. Johnson, a plumber and later real-estate salesman of Swedish descent. From the beginning, the free-spirited Loretta felt miserable in her marriage to Charles, a tough-minded, pragmatic man who valued thrift over material comfort. The arrival of a son merely added more pressure to the young couple's dismal relationship, and ultimately drove Loretta to alcoholism.   When Van was only three years old, Loretta abandoned the family and fled to Brooklyn, New York in pursuit of a livelier and more fulfilled existence. Van would not see her mother again until he was in his late teens. Commenting on his parents' divorce years later, Van said, « I was too young to comprehend it then and today I deliberately don't try .»   LEFT: ...