Monday 16 August 2021

Gaslight (1944 George Cukor)

Charles Boyer seems a little off... He's trying to drive his new wife Ingrid Bergman mad. And slutty maid Angela Lansbury isn't helping. Patrick Hamilton's play had been filmed in the UK with Anton Walbrook and Diana Wynyard; here it's got the MGM polish with Joseph Ruttenberg on camera, Ralph Winters cutting and Selznick lending them Bergman and Joseph Cotten. This interpretation is by John Van Druten, Walter Reisch and Joseph Balderston. Dame Mae Whitty is an annoying neighbour, Barbara Everest the hard-of-hearing maid.

Bergman's great - won the Oscar. The story goes that MGM's feared Head of Editing Margaret Booth thought her performance in the dailies lacking and encouraged her to do more. The scene where Bergman confronts her exposed husband is terrific (I thought she was going to kill him).

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