![]() ![]() With that being said, the final moments were starting in their thrilling nature and the film is truly a classic in this genre. The movie is engaging from start to finish, but there was so much repetitiousness in the same manipulation tactics being employed by the husband to his wife that I wished for more variation on this same scenario. If there is one thing that bothered me in this otherwise masterful film it is the pacing and the structure. She played this Cockney servant with so much effortless humor and charisma. But the highlight here has to be Angela Lansbury in what was her first film role in what would turn out to be an extraordinarily sprawling career. Dame May Whitty gets to shine in a minor role while Joseph Cotten is as likable and as heroic as he always is. ![]() Gaslight surprisingly has solid supporting roles too. Boyer was absolutely incredible playing this creepy and calculating husband character and how he delivered his lines with so much menace was impressive. What this man did to this woman was so memorably atrocious that the term “gaslighting” was born due to this movie alone. This was the case of a truly brilliant casting decision – employ Boyer who most often played these suave, romantic womanizers and turn that on its head by making him still play a charmer, but one with very sinister motifs and disturbing manipulation tactics. He was also nominated by the Academy and rightfully so. The character is wonderfully written and Bergman made her very sympathetic.Īnother standout is Charles Boyer himself. Usually cited as one of the worthiest winners in this category, Bergman is as beautiful as ever, but also genuinely believable as this frightened and confused woman who is still not a victim as she gets to have her revenge in the end. Ingrid Bergman won her first Oscar for playing the manipulated Paula and she was truly marvelous. The performances made this movie an undeniable classic. Based on a stage play and impeccably transported to the big screen, the screenplay is phenomenal, very sophisticated and accompanied by such an eerie, suspenseful atmosphere and a lot of psychological insight, making it a rare example of a true early psychological thriller. He was seriously snubbed by the Academy for his superb work here. This is one of those rare films that felt belonging in its entirety to his opus.Īnd Cukor needs to be congratulated for successfully directing such atypical material for him. George Cukor directed this film, but you would never think that a director best known for writing directing lighter romantic comedies would make something that is very reminiscent of not only noir pictures, but of Hitchcock himself. His obsessive interest in the home rises from a secret that may require driving his wife insane. Ten years after her aunt was murdered in their London home, a woman returns from Italy in the 1880s to resume residence with her new husband. “ Are you becoming suspicious as well as absent-minded, Paula? “ It is one of the best movies of this year. Gaslight is a 1944 psychological thriller film directed by George Cukor and starring Ingrid Bergman and Charles Boyer. And Mason has got that twinkle in his eye that looks like a man not taking it too seriously.Īlso in the cast are Nora Swinburne, Margaretta Scott, Stuart Lindsell, Cathleen Nesbitt, Helen Haye, Amy Veness, Ann Wilton, Guy Le Feuvre, Ann Stephens, Gloria Sydney, Peter Jones and John Turnbull.………………………………………………… Gaslight Movie Review It starts with young Fanny boarding school and returning to 1870s London and witnessing the death of the man she thinks is her father in a fight with Manderstoke.ĭirector Anthony Asquith ensures that there is a film of more substance and quality this time. Then there is Stewart Granger as Henry Somerford, the parliamentary secretary of Calvert’s father, who loves her, Jean Kent as her friend, Wilfrid Lawson as the innkeeper she stays with, and John Laurie as her real father, well-respected politician William Hopwood. In this story from the novel by Michael Sadleir, Calvert plays Fanny, the illegitimate daughter of a member of the government, while Mason plays the lecherous Lord Manderstroke who is after her. It was banned in the US because it transgressed the Hays Purity Code. The movie is real grand vintage escapist entertainment, and, thanks to a healthy budget and the spirited playing, probably the most prized of the Gainsborough studio’s famous melodramas. James Mason is back in 1944 as the hissable villain that the British public of the day so much enjoyed, relishing being beastly again to Phyllis Calvert – just as he was in The Man in Grey (1943). Fanny by Gaslight *** (1944, Phyllis Calvert, James Mason, Wilfrid Lawson, Stewart Granger, Jean Kent, John Laurie) – Classic Movie Review 3943 ![]()
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