Infamousta brilliant actors, brilliant editing

Lollivan It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

Aneesa Wardle The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

Frances Chung Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

ElMaruecan82 They say a film is as good as the villain, but sometimes, the villain might be too good for the film's own good. I don't think I've been as distraught and upset by a villain as I was by the manipulative expert Gregory Anton in George Cukor's "Gaslight", the most famous and best adaptation of Patrick Hamilton's play. Indeed, enduring the psychological torture he applied to his love-seeking wife Paula, played by an emotionally versatile Ingrid Bergman, was such an infuriating experience that I left almost one decade between the first and the second viewing, and I literally tiptoed to the DVD to force myself to refresh my memory. After the first fifteen minutes, just when I thought I could stand it, I realized that any horror movie would have been more supportable... or am I overreacting?I think there must have been some strong reaction toward that novelty of a plot where a person drove another one insane through mental manipulation to the point that "gas light" became part of common language... that's how impactful it was. Not many movies deal with that particular device, but this is how "Gaslight" was revolutionary and sophisticated in a twisted way, suiting the emerging noir genre. The "gas light" effect referring to the dimming of the light that made Paula believe she was going crazy isn't effective on a narrative level because it's driven by a fact but rather by the seeds of doubt it sows on her mind. We know for a fact that a woman is being manipulated but only suspicion can heal her from her husband's cruel dominance.But she can't suspect him because she loves him in a way that echoes Stockholm Syndrome and he's a Machiavellian gourmet who knows exactly the amount of cruelty and suavity to apply.Charles Boyer's with all these cunning eyes, that mouth always wary about not letting a word slip, and his faux-affable "French lover" manners, elevate his characters to summits of vileness and gaining extra altitude by a symmetric effect with Ingrid Bergman who brings an extraordinary level of pathos while maintaining a strange aura of dignity. This is a woman whose heart and mind are slowly shred to pieces but she's resigned to believe any word of her beloved husband because she can envision anything except such capability of vileness. Why would the gaslight dim every night? Why would she hear noises the servant doesn't notice and why would Gregory be wrong if the second maid wasn't so arrogant and defiant? Even Angela Lansbury in her screen debut is perfect in the role of Nancy, the street smart and slightly slutty maid whose deadpan and snarky attitude is more affecting than any hint of false empathy or true detachment. This is a free-spirited woman yet manipulated by the way Gregory exploits every element of the environment and every possible situation. So what we have is a conspiracy perfectly oiled where Cukor makes us witness the action while making us as powerless as Paula. We're like passive observers bound and gagged and undergoing the villain's sadism. In a way, if we consider anger as a brief madness, we're also being "gaslighted" by Cukor.The mark of great films is to elicit strong responses; and watching "Gaslight" a second time reminded me of something I meant as a compliment after my initial viewing, I thought it was the most Hitchcockian non-Hitchcock film... and the presence of Dame May Whitty or Joseph Cotten play like interesting nods to "The Lady Vanishes" and "Shadow of a Doubt". In"Vanishes", the main protagonist was toyed with her own certitudes and lured into doubting her own sanity and "Shadow" is about a villain who's a close parent. "Gaslight" makes these two plot points converge beautifully but there is another Hitchcock classic it bears a kinship with: "Suspicion". And I think I can now be more explicit about what bothered me with "Suspicion" and that makes "Gaslight" a superior movie. In "Suspicion", the husband's guilt was the central theme but worked as a double edged word, if he was guilty, then he left too many hints to be a believable villain, if he wasn't, it was anticlimactic. In "Gaslight", we know the villain from the start and we know he's good at hiding his vileness (the essence of 'gaslighting') and the frustration doesn't come from the act but the lack of suspicion, the point is the psychological struggle within a woman whose passion blinds her mind and endangers it, a woman who trades her self-esteem for the sake of the most harmful person she could ever meet. "Gaslight" foreshadowed, no pun intended, the way film noir would dominate post-war cinema, at a time where many people were blinded by patriotism and driven to real madness by leaders who had contempt for them. "Gaslight" is also a marvel of film noir in its use of the nightmarish fog of London Victorian streets used as the perfect camouflage for a Jekyll/Hyde villain, and where d the walls of respectability of an ordinary house, hid the claustrophobic nightmare of a woman lost among so many useless items and trophies, being the most precious one of all... or the most disposable.Boyer, Lansbury were all Oscar-nominated, but it was Bergman who won thee first of the three Oscars and deservedly so. In what could have been a one-note performance she explores every possible shade of fragility, doubt and panic, disbelief and resignation, whiplash moods orchestrated by her evil husband until her shining moment at the end, perhaps one of the most satisfying rants, where the whole scheme of Gregory backfires in the most delightful way.But I still wonder why he wasn't listed in AFI's Top 50 villains, the film made the "thrills" list but who made the thrills?

Marcin Kukuczka "Dark and shivering study of Victorian villainy," (Bosley Crowther, New York Times review May 5th 1944) seems best to describe the spirit that predominates this screen adaptation of Patrick Hamilton's Broadway play that aired a few years earlier. GASLIGHT directed by George Cukor, a director that was more familiar with melodramatic stories of intense female sensibility (consider CAMILLE with Greta Garbo and Robert Taylor), displays a truly engrossing combination of film noir and psychology, something that was still winning widespread acclaim at the time.And the film won two Academy Awards being nominated for seven: Ingrid Bergman as Best Actress and Art Direction. But that is not the highlight of my review since absolutely different reasons lie behind the fact that GASLIGHT has truly stood a test of time and, thanks to its black and white images, may engross viewers of modern technologies.As James Berardinelli states in his review, the film may be divided into two parts, actually. The first half, as he says, is "deceptively romantic" (this deception embraces the female leading character and us all as the observers, viewers); the second half is an "ominous" tribulation filled with suspicions, moments of tension, "gothic, noirish and effective melodrama" (Filmsite). The Thornton Square is at the center of mysterious events that lead to fear of some characters and growing greed of others. Berardinelli rightly concludes that hardly any film can match "this picture's intricate psychology."It is nothing but a masterwork in the depiction of Paula Alquist (Ingrid Bergman) being planted the seeds of doubt about her husband and Gregory Anton (Charles Boyer) slowly growing horns of tyranny and greed. The couple hold the best dramatic moments of the film and, being set in the noirish claustrophobic whereabouts, they deliver something of a reality unforgettable. Their scenes are memorable thanks to flawless acting skills and the visual elements. The supporting characters need a special mention as well, primarily Joseph Cotten as Scotland Yard officer Brian Cameron who soon contributes to Paula's way to fresh air, charming luminous humour of Dame May Witty's in the role of Miss Thwaites who finally manages to see the couple, Barbara Everest as Elizabeth and, in her debut role, a newcomer to the screen Angela Lansbury as Nancy. The atmosphere of the movie is, actually, one of its main strengths. Who can forget the idyllic scenes of their honeymoon, who can possibly skip the haunting images of London in fog, who can fail to notice the shadows in the interiors and the psychological torments of the leading character.However, an important fact about this film is its psychology combined with the moral message. As a matter of fact, it is one of the most powerful depictions of manipulations and its mechanisms that not solely exist in some abstract reality that may occur far from simple citizens but indeed may exist and grow among anyone of us. The conceit and deception of superiority and the shrinking esteem derived from inferiority leads to confusion of unfair relations and the lack of honesty that the couple experience.The happy ending, flawed as it may seem and criticized by many film scholars, has its parallel and meaning. At last new future, new reality, a haven of fresh air outside of claustrophobic trauma.

Ilpo Hirvonen George Cukor's "Gaslight" (1944), based on a play by Patrick Hamilton, was the MGM studio's attempt to overwrite history and replace the British film adaption of the same name made four years earlier. They succeeded. Few have seen Dickinson's "Gaslight" (1940), and most remember Cukor's. And it is indeed quite a treat. It's simply a well- made piece of cinema. British suspense has often been well translated into Hollywood and Alfred Hitchcock is probably the best example of this popular phenomenon. Cukor's film's British nature is veritably strong since it takes place in Victorian England, it has British humor and its share of Hitchcockian elements. The basic set-up of the story is that a woman, Paula Alquist (Ingrid Bergman) has lost her closest and dearest relative, a famous opera singer, at a very young age and now, as an adult, returns to the very place of crime with her husband, Gregory Anton (Charles Boyer). The familiar environment brings back memories and mysteries involved with the death of Paula's aunt. The strangely secretive marriage of Paula and Gregory as well as their few public appearances draw the interest of Brian Cameron (Joseph Cotten), a former fan of Paula's aunt, who thinks that Paula might be in danger. Overall, the story is very simple. The classical narrative works extremely well with a tight structure supported by a conventional style. To some, the film might seem utterly predictable, but in a way that's the whole point, and this is yet another parallel to Hitchcock. For the essence of Hitchcockian suspense lies in build-up rather than surprise. The viewer knows the mystery of "Gaslight" but is nonetheless excited to see the development of its revelation to the characters. As many know, the English expression "gas-lighting" refers to mental abuse where information is distorted in such a way that the person who receives it is made to think that she has lost her mind. This supplies the story with its basic motif, the gaslight, which strongly belongs to its historical milieu and is, despite its seeming narrative significance, left ambiguous in deeper meaning. Given this set-up, it is easy to see how "Gaslight" is really a film about power and imprisonment. On a historical-social level, it can be seen as an ironic comment on marriage as a prison for women who have been sentenced to a lower social status in comparison to their husbands. (Interestingly, Robert Siodmak's "The Suspense" (1944) reveals a situation where murder is the only escape for the husband from his Victorian-age marriage). On a general level of psychology, the film might also be seen as a story about being imprisoned by one's past, whereas, on a more private level, it can be seen as a story about the tormenting experience of manipulation. There is one scene in particular that deserves attention. Gregory has reluctantly taken Paula to a social get-together where he is able to make Paula believe in her kleptomania as well as in the urgent need of keeping her locked up, away from the eyes of the public. The private anxiety of Paula as she is surrounded by a large number of people is pure Hitchcock, whose films often feature brilliant sequences where characters feel most alert in crowded spaces.Although the film is hardly an imitation, its subtle sense of film-noir, the powerful presence of Ingrid Bergman, and its story about a frail woman being terrorized by a deranged man draw immediate associations with Hitchcock. For one, Hitchcock made his share of such stories in the 1940's, most notably "Rebecca" (1940), "Suspicion" (1941), and "Shadow of a Doubt" (1943). The films also bear a similar "predictability". If Stanley Donen's "Charade" (1963) is the best pastiche of the later Hitchcock style, "Gaslight" is a wonderful reflection of Hitchcock's style in the 1940's. Overall, and despite these parallels, Cukor's narrative in its classical nature is quite different from Hitchcock's perpetual desire to regenerate cinematic narrative and stands strongly on its own. The film is very worth seeing simply for the divine pleasure of watching the story unfold in a tight, precisely considered structure, making one yearn for Hollywood in the 1940's.

utgard14 A young bride (Ingrid Bergman) and her husband (Charles Boyer) move into the house where her aunt was murdered years before. Suddenly her sweetheart of a husband becomes cruel and she seems to be losing her mind. A Scotland Yard detective (Joseph Cotten) becomes enamored with her and starts investigating.A great-looking thriller from MGM with a fine cast. It's based on a play (filmed before) but George Cukor does a good job making it feel fresh and not stagy. Wonderful MGM production values. Love those period sets and costumes. Bergman's Oscar-winning performance is one of her best. Boyer and Cotten are solid as ever. Dame May Witty plays a well-intentioned busybody that kind of got on my nerves. Angela Lansbury's good in her film debut. The movie's biggest failing is its predictability. When I first watched it many years ago, I didn't like it much because of this. But now I'm able to appreciate the good qualities of the film more. You get a good idea fairly early on here who the villain is and what they are up to (assuming you weren't spoiled by plot synopses online or in film guides, 95% of which give away the big plot points). Like many classic Hitchcock films, it isn't a mystery or twist that makes it work but fine characters and suspense built up throughout the picture.