Actors - Gaslight

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	Actors - Gaslight

Gaslight is a 1944 film, considered film noir, directed by George Cukor starring Ingrid Bergman and Charles Boyer. The film was nominated for a Best Picture Academy Award. Ingrid Bergman won the Best Actress Oscar while Boyer was nominated for Best Actor and Angela Lansbury was nominated for Best Supporting Actress in her film debut. The story is based on the Patrick Hamilton play Angel Street, in which a man marries a woman and tries to convince her she is crazy.

The makers of this film attempted to have all copies of the 1940 version destroyed, but they were unsuccessful as copies of the older version have survived and critics are divided as to which is actually the better film.

The term "to gaslight someone" – to make someone think he or she is going insane – derives from the titles and subject matter of these two films.

Plot

The film begins after world-famous opera singer Alice Alquist has been murdered. The murderer apparently bolted before getting what it was that he had come for, something that belonged to Alice Alquist. He had been spooked by the young girl in the house who had surprised him in his dastardly deed. This turns out to be Paula (Ingrid Bergman), Alice's niece, who has been brought up by her aunt after her mother's death.

Paula is sent to Italy so that she can train to be an opera star. Her training is left in the hands of the same teacher who once trained Alice. She studies with him for years, all the while trying to forget that terrible night at number 9, Thornton Square in London where the murder took place.

She meets a man, Gregory Anton (Charles Boyer), and falls in love with him. She eventually ends her long tutelage under her aunt's old teacher and marries Gregory. He suggests that they go to live in London, and conveniently, Paula owns a house there; her aunt naturally bequeathed number 9, Thornton Square to her. They move in. The house's contents have remained undisturbed for almost a decade, but Paula is naturally reminded of that awful night by all her aunt's old things, especially the great protrait of her over the fireplace. Gregory suggests that they lock all Alice's things away in the loft, and Paula agrees.

Even before the things are locked away, there is a jarring moment in which Paula finds a letter tucked in a music book addressed to her aunt from a man named Sergius Bauer, and dated only two days before the murder. Upon her reading the name, Gregory almost has a fit, most dissonantly banging the keys on the piano that he has been playing. He quickly composes himself, however, and explains his outburst as one of frustration at the bad memories that the house brings back to his wife.

After Alice's things are packed away in the loft, and the door to the loft is blocked, things begin to take a turn for the bizarre. Paula loses a brooch at the Tower of London that Gregory has given her (and Gregory's love of jewels becomes apparent when he goes bug-eyed at the Crown Jewels – which are still kept at the Tower today). Paula cannot imagine how she came to lose it, as it was safely stored in her handbag. Also, other curious things happen. Pictures disappear from the walls of the house, and Gregory begins to insinuate that Paula is doing these odd things, but Paula has no recollection of doing such things.

Gregory does everything in his power to isolate his young, "mad" wife from other people, neither allowing her to go out, nor letting her have visitors. On the one occasion when he actually does take her out to a musical gathering at a friend's house, he shows Paula his watch chain, from which his watch has mysteriously disappeared. It is found in her handbag. She has a crying fit, and Gregory takes her home.

The young maid does not help the mood at number 9. Whenever she shows up, her face betrays a feeling of disdain, and Paula becomes convinced that Nancy (Angela Lansbury) loathes her.

Paula begins to "imagine" things. The gaslight in her room dims every evening after Gregory has gone out for his walk, but neither Nancy nor the hard-of-hearing Elizabeth will own up to having turned another gas jet on elsewhere in the house. Also, Paula hears footfalls above her room. No-one will believe that these things are actually happening.

However, they are happening. Gregory is using very cruel and devious methods to convince Paula that she is going mad, so that no-one will believe what she says, or possibly so that he can have her certified insane and get her out of the house. There is a frighteningly palpable reason for his apparently absurd, unkind behaviour. Unknown to Paula, Gregory actually sought her out in Italy, managed to win her heart, married her, and suggested that they live in London, all so that he could get into the house at number 9, Thornton Square. He is in fact Sergius Bauer, the man who wrote the letter in the music book (which Gregory later tries to convince Paula she imagined), and the man who murdered Alice Alquist. He still wants what he was looking for the night he murdered Paula's aunt: her jewels. He has been rummaging through Alice's belongings in the loft to find what he knows is there, but they are evidently well hidden, as it takes him quite a while to find them.

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Actors - Gaslight

Plot

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