#GASLIGHT 1944 MOVIE#

Lansbury tested for the role, and Cukor was impressed with her poise, the way she carried herself, and her Cockney accent. Angela Lansbury’s Stunning DebutĪngela Lansbury was unknown when Cukor cast her as Nancy, the conniving maid who tries to lure Anton away from his wife. Hitchcock later cast Bergman in Spellbound” and Notorious. The Oscar cemented Bergman’s reputation as Hollywood’s most popular actress, having made Casablanca and For Whom the Bell Tolls the year before. Ingrid Berman, who won the first of her three Oscars for this film, is terrific as the fragile bride terrorized by her husband’s dirty tricks.

#GASLIGHT 1944 MOVIE#

The movie received an Oscar for interior decoration (as it was then called). The set decoration is by Paul Huldchinsky, a German refugee who borrows elements from German expressionist style in making the house cluttered and stifling, imbued a claustrophobic jail-like atmosphere. The spirit of the dead soprano haunts the house where she was strangled.Ĭedric Gibbons deservedly won an Oscar for supervising the art direction. The key symbol of the fluttering gaslight is established during the credits sequence, while Alice’s voice is heard on the soundtrack. Please read our review of Ingrid Bergman’s second Best Actress Oscar performance (below)Īnastasia (1956): Ingrid Bergman’s Oscar-Winning Comeback Performance There’s an ironic note to Paula’s revenge–Anton discovers the gems (embroidered on Alice’s gown) just before going to prison. In the touching climax, Paula finds out that her husband had never loved her, that he had been enslaved to his obsessive addiction to diamonds. By giving this vital information away, before the heroine herself finds out, tension builds steadily.

Cukor follows Hitchcock in tipping off the audience early on the husband’s greed and duplicity. The flickering flames increase Paula’s fear that her rational faculties are beginning to weaver. The title derives from the gas jet in Paula’s bedroom, which ominously dims whenever her husband turns on the gas lamp in the attic in his obsessive search through Alice’s possessions. The superbly crafted script, co-written by John Van Druten and Walter Reisch, moved the action effectively out of the stage’s confines the picture doesn’t betray its theatrical origins.Īfter their honeymoon, Anton (Charles Boyer) sets out to drive his young cherubic wife (Ingrid Bergman) insane so that he can conveniently put her in an asylum and steal the precious jewels hidden in their house, where he had murdered her aunt Alice, a rich, renowned soprano. Cukor’s film, which is half an hour longer than the British film, is smoother, richer in psychological detail, and more artfully executed. Nominated for eight Oscars, it’s one of Cukor’ best pictures and one of MGM’s most accomplished noir melodramas of the 1940s. “Gaslight” is based on Patrick Hamilton’s play, which premiered in London in 1938, then ran on Broadway for two years. When MGM decided to remake the film, it bought the rights to Thorold Dickinson’s version and withdrew the movie from circulation, causing a lot of resentment in the British industry. as “Angel Street” (aka “Murder in Thornton Square”), starring Anton Walbrook and Dianna Wynyard. George Cukor’s suspenseful melodrama is a remake of the British film, released in the U.S. “ Don’t you gaslight me,” meaning “Don’t try to drive me crazy,” became a popular expression in 1944 based on the noir thriller “Gaslight.”

Gaslight 1944