Freud (1962)

Freud: The Secret Passion, also known as Freud, is a 1962 American biographical film drama based on the life of Austrian psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud, directed by John Huston. Montgomery Clift stars as Freud.

This pseudo-biographical movie depicts Sigmund Freud's life from 1885 to 1890. At this time, most of his colleagues refuse to treat hysteric patients, believing their symptoms to be ploys for attention. Freud, however, learns to use hypnosis to uncover the reasons for the patients' neuroses. His main patient in the film is a young woman who refused to drink water and is plagued by a recurrent nightmare.

The story compresses the years it took Freud (Montgomery Clift) to develop his psychoanalytic theories into what seems like a few months. Nearly every neurotic symptom imaginable manifests itself in one patient, Cecily Koertner (Susannah York). She is sexually repressed, hysterical, and fixated on her father. Freud worked extensively with her, developing one hypothesis after another. Also shown is Freud's home life with his wife Martha (Susan Kohner), whom he alternately discusses his theories with and patronizes when she reads one of his papers.

Asked in 1958 to write the script by the director John Huston, Jean Paul Sartre wrote the first synopsis of some 95 typed pages. Huston accepted this, and Sartre went to work on a shooting script. Like the synopsis, it was too long. Sartre was asked to chop this first version, which he did. The result was that the revamped version was longer still. In any case, Sartre and Huston could not get along, so the French philosopher asked for his name to be removed from the credits. However, the film Freud still shows faint signs of Sartre's work on the script.

Marilyn Monroe nearly got to play the part of one of the more colorfully hysterical patients, Cecily.

By the time Clift was making Freud his destructive lifestyle was affecting his health. Universal sued him for his frequent absences that caused the film to go over budget. The case was later settled out of court; the film's success at the box office brought numerous awards for screenwriting and directing, but none for Clift himself.