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As a fictional device, this kind of amnesia offers huge scope for invention. It can also catch out unwary scriptwriters who haven't done their homework, says Sergio Della Sala, an expert in memory disorders at Edinburgh University.
One film he gives full marks for scientific accuracy is Amateur, in which Isabelle Huppert plays an ex-nun and writer of pornography who befriends Thomas, an amnesiac. When Thomas lights up a cigarette she expresses surprise, because although he can remember nothing about his past he can remember how to smoke. "That's accurate," says Della Sala. "People with amnesia do not forget procedures. They can still ride a bike."
Retrograde amnesia is very rare. But there is another kind of forgetfulness that crops up in real life as often as the Gregory Peck variety does in the movies: anterograde amnesia. This is a core symptom of Alzheimer's disease, the most common of dementias, and people who suffer from it have difficulty learning new things. They get stuck in a rut of what they already know.