Gaslight (1944) at Reel Classics: a review

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Movie Review:

- A good movie; see it.

dir. George Cukor at MGM
with Charles Boyer (as Gregory Anton), Ingrid Bergman (as Paula Alquist), Joseph Cotten (as Brian Cameron), Angela Lansbury (as Nancy) and Dame May Whitty (as Miss Thwaites)

This is one of the best suspense movies I’ve ever seen: well acted by a wonderful cast, beautifully photographed, and just an overall neat movie. It’s the story of a young singer (Bergman) who falls in love with her accompanist (Boyer) and moves to London, back into the house where her aunt, a great opera star, was murdered years before. The case was never solved, though detective Joseph Cotten and eccentric neighbor Dame May Whitty are still very interested in it. Slowly, the mysterious history of the house overcomes Bergman and she begins to go mad. But is she really losing her mind? And who can explain her husband’s strange behavior at night?

Bergman is excellent in this film and won an Oscar for her efforts. The picture as a whole, along with Boyer and Lansbury, was also nominated. (If you’ve never seen Lansbury in anything but "Murder, She Wrote", definitely check out this film -– she’s just a housemaid, but what I housemaid!) There isn’t a whole lot required of Cotten in this film, but Dame May Whitty is a riot as the curious neighbor and this is my favorite of her performances.

Reviewed: December 24, 1999

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