What is this hypnotist movie?

May 6, 2012 11:25 AM

Help me identify this movie I saw years ago: I'd guess it was made in the 40's or 50's, american, thriller involving a hypnotist.

This is all I can remember. . .

An extended family gathers at a creepy estate.
They go to a show and see a hypnotist.
Someone in the party is hypnotized and someone is murdered, not necessarily in that order.


It's a long shot, but it's been bothering me for so long.

Hope you can help me- thanks!

posted by abirdinthehand to Grab Bag (4 answers total)

I wondered if it was Dario Argento's "Deep Red" but doesn't sound quite on the money.
posted by misspony at 11:56 AM on May 6, 2012

The first half of the She Creature fits this description, at least until the evil hypnotist calls forth a prehistoric she creature from beyond time....
posted by volition at 12:10 PM on May 6, 2012

Do you remember if the hypnotist was also a ventriloquist? It could be Devil Doll.
posted by DiscourseMarker at 1:09 PM on May 6, 2012

There's a movie about a hypnotist called Whirlpool from 1949 (it stars Jose Ferrer) but it doesn't really match your plot. I have seen a supernatural thriller of, I think, British origin that reminds me a whole lot more of your sketched out plot. It's called Dead Of Night from 1945. It's about a group of people who gather at a country estate. Hypnotism might have figured in to the plot (there was a psychiatrist who might have employed hypnotism to disprove a man's insistence that he had a recurring dream where he visited that estate -- that he had actually never been to before -- and witnessed a murder). The man insisted that the fact that his dreams were becoming reality meant that a death was imminent.
posted by Mael Oui at 9:02 PM on May 6, 2012