NFR Project: 'Gaslight' (1944)

 

NFR Project: “Gaslight”

Dir: George Cukor

Scr: John Van Druten, Walter Reisch, John L. Balderston

Pho: Joseph Ruttenberg

Ed: Ralph E. Winters

Premiere: May 4, 1944

114 min.

The 1938 play Gas Light by British writer Patrick Hamilton had a long life. When the play was mounted in America (starring Vincent Price in his first major villainous role), it ran for an amazing three years on Broadway, from 1941 through 1944. It was adapted into a memorable British film in 1940, dubbed Angel Street in the U.S., and starred the great Anton Walbrook in the villain’s part.

MGM noted the success of the film and determined to make an American version of it. Gathered under the direction of the venerable George Cukor, Ingrid Bergman, Charles Boyer, and Joseph Cotten played the primary roles. It also boasted the first film appearance of Angela Lansbury, who played a slatternly maid.

The result is a gripping thriller (so scary that MGM labeled it "not suitable for general exhibition"). It’s a story set in foggy London in the Edwardian Age. A famous opera singer is strangled to death, and her murderer escapes. This event traumatizes the victim’s niece Paula (Bergman), who leaves her dead aunt’s mansion in Thornton Square and moves to Italy to work on her voice – she hopes to imitate her aunt’s vocal prowess.

She finds that she does not have the taste for following in her aunt’s footsteps, but in the meantime is swept off her feet by the dashing accompanist Gregory Anton (Boyer). After a whirlwind courtship, the two marry. Gregory insists that they return to the aunt’s shuttered mansion, which slightly unsettles Paula. Gregory moves all of her aunt’s belongings to the mansion’s top floor, and the two begin their life together.

But something is amiss. When Gregory leaves the house in the evening, the gaslight in the house dims – a sign that the gas is being utilized somewhere else in the dwelling. Paula finds a letter from a Sergius Bauer to the aunt, which her husband angrily snatches from her. She hears footsteps and bumping from the floor above, but Gregory insists that she is imagining things.

Gregory gives Paula a brooch, which Paula promptly loses. He forbids her to leave the house unaccompanied, isolating her from her neighbors. He convinces her that she suffers from mental instability. A picture on the wall disappears, and Gregory accuses Paula of hiding it. He misses his watch, which turns up in Paula’s reticule. Paula becomes more and more distraught, convinced that she is losing her mind.

Meanwhile, an intrepid police inspector (Cotten) revives the aunt’s unsolved murder case, and begins to suspect that Gregory is not who he seems to be. Several valuable jewels owned by the aunt were never found, and the inspector suspects that Gregory was her murderer—and that he is still searching for those gems. Time is running out, as Gregory determines to commit Paula to a mental institution.

Far be it from me to reveal the conclusion – but note that Bergman won the Oscar for her portrayal of a woman losing her mind, and that the film won an Oscar for its atmospheric production design. Cukor’s subtle approach keeps us guessing – is Paula really crazy? Paula is trapped in her home, the victim of a cruel manipulator who turns her home into a prison and their marriage into a paranoid conflict.

The play, and the two films that resulted from it, gave us the expression “gaslighting,” meaning the attempt of a person to convince another that their perceptions are not true. Do the lights in Paula’s home really dim? And if so, why?

The NFR is one writer’s attempt to review all the films listed in the National Film Registry in chronological order. Next time: Double Indemnity.