Extremely well made by director John Huston. What sounds like it could easily be laughable (Montgomery Clift as Freud?!?) is in fact a very interesting, at times even suspenseful film. Clift, playing Freud in his thirties, is exceptional. In fact, this is probably his finest post-accident performance; controlled and at times almost subtle. He's well-matched with a great supporting cast including Larry Parks as his mentor, Susannah York as a particularly troubled patient and Susan Kohner as his patient (if not always understanding) wife. Director Huston and scriptwriters Charles Kaufman & Wolfgang Reinhardt (retooling work done by Jean Paul Sartre) make no judgments on Freud's theories, instead leaving this very open-ended. The interesting supporting cast also includes David McCallum, Eric Portman as one of Freud's more disagreeable seniors, and Fernand Ledoux as French doctor Jean-Martin Charcot, who helped pioneer some of they hypnosis theories Freud would later become so famous for. The not so subtle music score is by Jerry Goldsmith and the cinematography is by Douglas Slocombe. A great movie.
Review of Freud
