The Search for Bridey Murphy

Odd structured film has Louis Hayward start out talking to the viewing audience as though he's introducing a TV play, but then he walks onto the set of the story, a cocktail party in 1956 Pueblo, Colorado.

Morey Bernstein (Hayward) is at a boring party where a visiting blowhard is doing parlor tricks by hypnotizing guests. Bernstein thinks it's stupid but his interest in piqued and he investigates hypnosis after being told the stories about Edgar Cayce.

He learns how to do it and starts investigating the phenomenon of hypnosis. One night Ruth Simmons (Teresa Wright) is at a party and lets him put her under. The room is stunned when Ruth seems to regress to a past life where she was the young Bridey Murphy in 1800s Ireland.

Bernstein tapes the session as Wright tells stories full of specific detail about places she's never been to. In a series of taped sessions, Wrights elaborates on the story of Bridey and even talks about her life after death, spooking everyone.

The film uses transcripts of the actual tapes from the real-life sessions Bernstein taped with the real-life Ruth (Virginia Tighe) in Pueblo. His resulting book was a sensation although it was condemned by several churches as it seemed to "prove" the ideas of reincarnation and post-death experiences.

The film basically presents the facts of the sessions and lets the viewer draw his own conclusions.

Wright gives a superb performance, but Hayward is very hammy and rather obnoxious. Co-stars include Nancy Gates as the wife, Kenneth Tobey as the husband, Richard Anderson as a doctor, and in the regression scenes, silent stars James Kirkwood, Hallene Hill, and Anne Cornwall.

Very interesting.