Gaslight

If you’ve not seen Gaslight (1944) you’re in for a treat: a classic film that became such a part of our society it’s title is used for actual reference to a certain human behavior: gaslighting. If you want to learn more about it, a quick trip to Wikipedia will give you the definition of gaslighting and how it’s attached to this film, Gaslight (1944). But in essence, it’s when someone does things to make you feel like you’re wrong and perhaps even crazy. Something you’ll watch play out throughout this film. Staring Ingrid Bergman as Paula and Charles Boyer as Gregory, follow his attempt to make Paula think herself crazy as he contrives to... you’ll have to watch. My wife and I have seen it a couple times (I’d seen it before on Sunday afternoon movies on TV), finding it both fascinating and infuriating. It drives my wife nuts (irony) how Boyer’s Gregory repeatedly says “Paula” throughout - I use it to mess with her, calling her Paula repeatedly - we have been married a long time. The point being, it’s a movie that makes you think and cringe at the reality of this story and how too real it can feel and be. Well done, watch the mental decline of a woman led to believe what she sees with her own eyes or knows, she comes to believe are not true. In the first film appearance by a strikingly young and beautiful Angela Lansbury, this story takes Paula and the viewer on a journey through the mind into a place of full on belief that what’s real is not. And it makes you - the audience - perhaps remember someone who may have tried to do the same to you (I’ve known a few people who figured things out in their lives from watching the movie). In the end, this movie is so well done it drives me crazy - making me mad for the woman being abused, but also seeing it done so well as to elicit such a response speaks to great filmmaking. We love it - and hate it - which makes Gaslight (1944) a great film for us.

George Cukor takes "Gaslight" from the stage to the screen. This film is done so well, that one would immediately guess that Alfred Hitchcock directed it. What makes this film work so well (and something that very few of today's directors understand) is the subtlety in which Charles Boyer (Anton) makes his wife feel that she is losing her mind. Unfortunately, many of today's films rest in the violence and gore. I have found that films are more suspenseful when they don't show you everything. Hitchcock was a master of this, and Cukor shows the same restraint here. Don't believe me? Check out "Psycho" again and see how much is not shown on the screen, but allowing the viewer to fill in the blanks with his/her own imagination. This is a far more effective style of film-making. The film immediately starts off with aftermath of a murder in London, in which Paula (Ingrid Bergman) is being sent away after the tragic events that end with the death of her aunt. The film then jumps some ten years into the future with Paula living in Italy where she meets her future husband, Gregory Anton (Charles Boyer). Things appear to be well between them. But is Anton's true agenda and how is it linked with events of the past? I won't divulge any details about that here for those who have not seen the film. Ingrid Bergman (perhaps one of the greatest actresses in film history) took home her first Oscar for Best Actress for her performance in this film. It's not hard to understand why. She takes Paula from a sweet and happy young woman to someone who doesn't trust her own mental faculties anymore. This sounds like an easy job for an actress, but it isn't. She has to make the viewer begin to question things as well, and she does. The ending allows her the tremendous payoff that we've been waiting for ever since the film began, and we revel in her ultimate triumph along with her character. Charles Boyer is fantastic as the sinister Anton. He also creates a complex character who, at first, appears sympathetic toward his young wife to someone who is quickly losing patience with her. But, is there something else at work? Charles Boyer can give a hard gaze that would make anybody begin quaking in their shoes. Finally, one of my favorite character actors (Joseph Cotton) plays a young assistant at Scotland Yard who was a great admirer of Paula's aunt (who was a great singer in her day). He feels that something is not entirely right with Paula and her husband. Paula is all but shunned away from the public. Anton feels that he can't allow her illness to be given public light. The young assistant decides to find out for himself, and perhaps help Paula in the process. I've been a huge Ingrid Bergman fan for years, and this was one of the first films of hers that I came across. I loved it immediately, and quickly decided that this was the best psychological thriller that I'd ever seen. It works on so many levels that still work today. Keep an eye out for a very young Angela Lansbury as a saucy maid. She looks so young! If you're looking for great suspenseful fun weaves a tapestry through the long lost art of subtley without the violence and gore, then you are in for a true treat! Gaslight more than fits the bill!

This is a great classic movie. It is basically where the term to gaslight someone comes from. Its got a good plot that moves along quickly and keeps the audience entertained. You constantly wonder if the main character is actually going insane. The acting is superb with great performances but Ingrid Bergman and a great acting debut by Angela Lansbury. Overall great old movie to watch.

To all the women who have questioned their sanity, there is nothing wrong with you!

Plot: Twice orphaned girl (first by mother and then by murdered aunt who raised her) marries foreign man while abroad only to return to the house her aunt raised her in. Things start disappearing. Even the audience doesn't know how they disappear. "Weird" stuff starts happening like things being moved around the house. Even the audience doesn't know. Noises are heard upstairs where no one is allowed. The gas lights lower at night as a sign that someone else is in the house using gas--straining the supply so the lights lower in other rooms. The husband mysteriously disappears every evening. He has the top floor of the house blocked off for some odd reason. The aunt's murder was not really solved. Scotland Yard is introduced talking about the case. The husband begins to think the wife is mad. The wife thinks she is mad. The audience questions her sanity. Comments: Classic murder/thriller mystery. The aunts murder is not really the focus but the cause of the events. Is it the mad wife? Is the it the loose maid who you question is messing around with the husband? Is it the weird foreign husband? Classic mystery. While I really can't stand watching movies about weak people being manipulated this was a pretty good movie. It was entertaining like movies should be. Nothing scandalous. Nothing shocking. Nothing offensive. Just a good story. And of course in the end all wrongs are righted so you don't have that miserable feeling like modern day movies and TV show would leave you feeling just so that they can be "different"--have an unpredictable ending. This movie could have taken the turn that modern day soap operas have where the evil characters continue to victimize the good characters where the good characters are just that--victims and annoying. But it doesn't. You also start to think that perhaps this is a precursor to the modern day slasher movies where the damsel in distress is a mindless, helpless, quivering rabbit, leaving you irritated at how stupid the character is. But right before you want to give up on it it turns itself around. Of course in this era you have the dramatic music that is supposed to highten the emotions which is kinda silly in some spots. You have the over the top acting in some spots--the looks, the quick turns, the close up of the eyes, etc. But all in all this is a good movie and these things are just minor distractions.

A Unique Movie In Western Cinematography The movie "Gaslight" is a superb rendition of the shakespearean battle of wills (superbly reminiscent of King Lear and his madness, his poignant foibles). The very name of the movie evokes a symbolic meaning (something tender and vulnerable like a flame in danger of extinction, just like the happiness of a young girl or the soul of a lady .. or the Spirit of Culture). This movie is completely TIMELESS as far as the recording of the essentials of the Western-European spirituality is concerned. A Frenchmen Boyer pitted against a Nordic diva Bergman, defended from the distance by the knightly Cotten and seemingly oddly egged-on by Lady Whitty (all of whom were creme-of-the-crop thespians from the Walhalla of Western acting). It is as much a battle between intellectual wills as an abysmal struggle with inner daemons lurking in the soul's chasm. The powerful but devious battle of wills between the chief protagonists is ingenuously interleaved within the storyline. The movie plot is supremely depicted within the appropriate foggy/sunny dichotomy of the classical London existence from the heyday of Victorian Western Culture period - and deserves nothing but our awe and our gratitude rooted in our appreciation for the historical value of this cinematic composition. The movie plot is dynamic through-and-through, loaded with subtle detail easily overlooked by the casual watcher, but available to the perceptive one for a fuller experience. The engine of this dynamic: The northern openness of soul instilled in a Grecian somatic beauty and tenderness of aristocratic lady-character of actress Ingrid Bergman in a complex (but not fully incompatible) contrast with the 'southern race-cunning' of the devious, impetuous, tyrannical, Napoleonic pivot of relentless willpower of actor Charles Boyer. A noble desire to be of service is in trouble with the relentless drive towards a fixed, manic, obsessive and self-destructive goal. How very Faustian! The Black-and-White scenes of the movie greatly enhance the gothic ambient of the movie's settings, and make the situations more artistically enhanced because the Baudelaire-esque psychology of the movie is supported by the effusive and accented shadows of grayness and blackness, greatly suffusing the sense of this signature European high drama. If on the ruins of our world, aliens from another planet were to some day enquire about the most culturally representative Western-European movie ever made - it would be "Gaslight" (1944).

Fantastic film from Hollywood’s golden age. Comes with the original British film as well. A fantastic blu ray release of an under appreciated classic. Ingrid delivers in her first Oscar winning performance. Definitely be wary though. People who’ve been in abusive relationships might find certain parts hard to watch. Still a fantastic film with fantastic performances. Don’t let anyone gaslight you into thinking otherwise.

Bien reçu : Gaslight, de Cukor, le 22 avril 2026. Doublé en français. Alors : 5 * Merci beaucoup !

Das Bühnenstück »Angel Street« von Patrick Hamilton, auf dem »Gaslight« fußt, wurde 1939 in London uraufgeführt, kurz darauf von der BBC (brillant!) verfilmt und kam schließlich an den Broadway, wo Vincent Price, Judith Evelyn und Leo G. Carroll in den Hauptrollen große Triumphe feierten. Für Hollywood musste das Stück selbstredlich etwas verändert werden; gleich drei Drehbuchautoren wurden mit dieser Aufgabe betraut. Unter George Cukors sicherer Regie entstand schließlich ein typischer und mit etlichen amerikanischen London-Klischees versehener Thriller, der den Zeitgeist hervorragend bediente, für volle Kinokassen sorgte und am Ende auch noch mit sieben Oscarnominierungen bedacht wurde. (Am Ende gewannen nur Ingrid Bergman und das vierköpfige Team, das für die Ausstattung verantwortlich zeichnete.) Paula Alquist (Bergman) heiratet den Pianisten Gregory Anton (Boyer). Das junge Paar zieht in das feudale Haus von Paulas unter mysteriösen Umständen ums Leben gekommenen Tante. Schon bald überschatten unheimliche Zwischenfälle das junge Glück: Paula hört Nacht für Nacht Geräusche auf dem Dachboden, verschiedene Gegenstände verschwinden und Gregory verdächtigt seine Frau, diese entweder entwendet oder versteckt zu haben. Die Situation wird immer zermürbender und Paula beginnt, an ihrem Verstand zu zweifeln. Erst die Intervention eines smarten Scotland-Yard-Detektivs (Cotten) öffnet Paula die Augen… Gedreht wurde von August bis Dezember 1943 in Los Angeles. Angela Lansbury, die hier ihren Einstand vor der Kamera gab, wurde während der Dreharbeiten gerade erst 18 Jahre alt und heimste für ihr Spiel prompt ihre erste Oscarnominierung ein. (Die Szene, in der sie eine Zigarette raucht, musste nach ihrem Geburtstag gedreht werden, um Ärger mit dem Gesetz zu vermeiden.) Ingrid Bergman bezeichnete ihren Spielpartner Boyer später in ihren Memoiren als den intelligentesten und freundlichsten Schauspieler, mit dem sie je gearbeitet hatte: »Er war sehr belesen und gebildet, und so anders als die meisten Schauspieler.« Ein rundum gelungener Film, dessen einziger dramaturgischer Schwachpunkt — der Zuschauer erfährt bereits (zu) früh, dass Gregory der Drahtzieher des Terrors ist — durch die Schauspielerleistungen (einzig Joseph Cotten scheitert ein wenig am englischen Akzent), die virtuose Kameraarbeit sowie die geschickt eingesetzte Musik spielend überdeckt wird. Cukors Klassiker lebt von seiner unbehaglichen Atmosphäre und der Düsternis des viktorianischen Londons. Zwar wurde Hamiltons Stück später noch etliche Male sowohl fürs Kino als auch fürs Fernsehen ausgewertet, unter anderem mit Judith Evelyn (1946), Margot Trooger (1960) und Erika Pluhar (1977), doch diese Adaption dürfte die mit Abstand berühmteste sein. Die bereits erwähnte Originalverfilmung von Thorold Dickinson sollte im Auftrag der MGM zerstört werden, um den Erfolg der Hollywood-Version nicht zu übertünchen. Dieses Vorhaben misslang allerdings, denn vor gut zehn Jahren brachte das BFI den Streifen in sehr guter Bild- und Tonqualität auf BluRay heraus. Das nach diesem Film benannte Gaslighting ist heute längst zu einer wissenschaftlich anerkannten Form des kontrollierend-manipulativen Verhaltens geworden: Es geht darum, dass ein (meist narzisstischer) ausbeuterischer Täter Menschen, die ihm auf die Schliche zu kommen drohen, so manipuliert, dass sie an sich selbst zweifeln und ihre eigenen Wahrnehmungen infrage stellen, sodass sie ihrem eigenen Verdacht misstrauen. In den 2020er Jahren wurde dieses Verhalten (endlich) als eine Form der psychologischen Gewalt und als Missbrauch eingestuft.

Das Produkt ist einwandfrei, die Lieferung überaus schnell. Allerdings sollte man genau schauen, was man bestellt. Ich habe wohl nicht genau hingesehen, denn ich war von deutscher Sprache ausgegangen. Der komplette Film ist in Englisch.

Love old films with an intriguing narrative and I was interested to learn the origins of the modern term "gaslighting".

Soy fan de los clásicos de oro del cine, y cuando supe que Warner Archive Collection había restaurado en formato Blu-Ray la película "Gaslight" o Luz de Gas, la compré de inmediato. Se ve espectacular, mejor que nunca, y trae también como material extra la película original de 1940. Llegó rápido y en perfectas condiciones.

I have wanted to add this movie to my collection for some time and was thrilled to find it, being one of the few I liked that starred Charles Boyer. Very well acted, enjoyed camera work, darker scenery, authentic settings, and good plot. Great acting. Pleased to have this DVD. Thank you.