Gaslight (1944) (nat)

A good spooky little movie. Gaslight was actually Angela Lansbury’s film debut for which she earned an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actress. Apparently she got the role and told the department store she worked at that she was quitting. They told her that she should disclose her new salary and maybe they could match it. She told them that she'd be making $500 a month--much more than the $65 a week she was making at the department store. They were a little surprised.

Ingrid Bergman won Best Actress Oscar and Golden Globe for her role as Paula and there were Oscar nominations for Best Actor (Charles Boyer), cinematography, picture, and screenplay. The movie won for art direction/interior decoration.

It also has Joseph Cotten as Brian Cameron (he’s the creepy Uncle Charlie in Shadow of a Doubt and was a friend of Orson Wells—his second role was the lead in Citizen Kane)

Paula (Bergman) leaves London, 9 Thornton Square (“number 9”) in particular, as a child after her aunt is mysteriously murdered and her jewels stolen. Paula was the one who found her strangled aunt (her mother had died when Paula was born and her aunt was her guardian). She’s sent to Italy to study under the singing maestro who taught her aunt. She falls in love with an older pianist (Charles Boyer) who dreams of living in London which, of course, is a bit upsetting to Paula but she decides that she can face it with Gregory as her husband. So they get married and move into number 9. Gregory is a little shady, though. He incessantly tells Paula that she’s ill and inflicts all manner of psychological games on her to convince her that she’s going mad (telling her that she loses things, is forgetful, is tired, stealing things of his, etc. when she’s not and not letting her receive any visitors). All the while Gregory seems to know more about London than he should. Gregory also hires the saucy and impertinent Nancy (Angela Lansbury) as a housemaid who Paula thinks hates her. Brian Cameron (Cotten) gets interested in the situation because he sees the resemblance between Paula and her dead aunt. He and the busybody neighbor (who loves gruesome murder mysteries) try to get to the bottom of things. The title comes from the fact that the gaslights in the house dim which Paula notices every night (at the same time there are noises in the attic) but for which there is seemingly no explanation. All is explained, of course, but not until the very last minute.

Very 1940s to be supposedly set in an era of bustle skirts—kissing in the street, Paula threatening to go out to a party on her own. But it's a good movie. A tight psychological thriller with Bergman playing crazy better than Vivian Leigh did in Streetcar (and that's a lot for me to admit).