Review of Gaslight (1944) by Devon B — 20 May 2010

Ingrid Bergman is the victim of Charles Boyer's sadistic mindgames in 1944's "Gaslight", a gothic film noir set in turn-of-the-century London. Paula (Bergman) moves to Paris after finding her aunt, a famous singer, strangled to death in their home.

While training to follow in her aunt's performing footsteps, she's swept off her feet by the debonair pianist, Gregory Anton (Boyer, in an evil "Peppy La Pue" sort of performance). In no time, they're married, but things go quickly downhill for Paula, as Gregory first moves them into the house where her aunt was murdered and then systematically beats her sanity down with mind games designed to make her think she's going mad.

The mystery here isn't so much whether or not she's going mad (we know she isnt'), but why her husband wants to do this to her. The suspense builds as we wonder how it's going to end, and who (or what) will, or can stop him.

Ingrid Berman is fantastic as the tortured wife (as well she should be, she does it again in Alfred Hitchcock's "Notorious"), and I enjoyed the love triangle between her Boyer, and Joseph Cotten, who's Scotland Yard detective (without even an attempt at a British accent) gets one of those famous noir "hunches", and re-opens the case of the long dead singer who once autographed a glove for him.

Director George Cukor does a near hitchcock-like job making of this film creepy and eerie, and I love the title and the role it plays in the film.