Even in the UK, this British version from 1940 of Patrick Hamilton's play is less well known than the American version with Charles Boyer and Ingrid Bergman from four years later. The reason, apparently, is that when MGM purchased the rights to film the play, the contract included a clause that the earlier film should be taken out of circulation. MGM even attempted to destroy all copies of the negative, and so "Gaslight"nearly joined the long list of movies from the thirties and forties which are now considered "lost films", but fortunately at least one copy must have survived.
The film is set in Victorian London. In the opening scene a wealthy old lady named Alice Barlow is murdered. The murderer is never caught, and after her death the house remains empty for about twenty years until a married couple named Paul and Bella Mallen move in. The marriage is not a happy one and Paul is a bully who treats his wife badly. Bella, who is attempting to recover from a nervous breakdown, begins to fear that she is losing her sanity when she starts hearing mysterious noises coming from the closed off upper floors and when she is unable to remember where she placed various objects. It transpires that Paul is playing psychological tricks on his wife, hoping to drive her mad. (He has a sinister reason for wishing to do such a thing). The significance of the title is twofold. The first that it evokes a sense of nostalgia for the gas-lit London of the Victorian past. The second is that the dimming of the gaslights in Bella's home is an important plot point.
This version has some similarities to the work of Alfred Hitchcock. (Hitchcock was later to make "Rope", another film based upon a Hamilton play, and "Suspicion", another film about a wife who comes to believe that her husband may have malign intentions towards her). Whereas Charles Boyer's character in the 1944 adaptation was outwardly charming and plausible, Anton Walbrook's Paul is a much more obvious villain, only bothering to hide his villainy beneath the thinnest veneer of gentlemanly charm. There are some similarities between Walbrook's character here and one of his best known roles, Boris Lermontov in "The Red Shoes". Lermontov is a cold, domineering bully whose bullying has a disastrous effect on Victoria, the heroine of that film, although there is an important difference between him and Paul, an evil figure who quite deliberately plans to cause psychological harm to his wife. Lermontov, by contrast, does not intend to cause any harm to Victoria, and is oblivious to the damage that he is doing. Diana Wynyard's Bella is similar to some Hitchcock heroines, especially the characters played by Joan Fontaine in "Rebecca" and "Suspicion" who initially seem weak and passive but later reveal hidden strengths of character.
It is a long time since I last saw the MGM version, so I will not attempt to compare the merits of the two films. This version was made by Thorold Dickinson, a well-known director in his day but largely forgotten today, possibly because he was never discovered by Hollywood in the way Hitchcock was and made all his films in Britain (apart from his final one, made in Israel). He also retired from making feature films at a comparatively young age and spent the rest of his career first working for the United Nations and then as an academic, becoming Britain's first Professor of Films. His version of "Gaslight", however, is a very effective suspense thriller, and the skill with which he handles his material, keeping the audience on the edge of their seats until the end, suggests that he deserves to be better known today. 7/10
The film is set in Victorian London. In the opening scene a wealthy old lady named Alice Barlow is murdered. The murderer is never caught, and after her death the house remains empty for about twenty years until a married couple named Paul and Bella Mallen move in. The marriage is not a happy one and Paul is a bully who treats his wife badly. Bella, who is attempting to recover from a nervous breakdown, begins to fear that she is losing her sanity when she starts hearing mysterious noises coming from the closed off upper floors and when she is unable to remember where she placed various objects. It transpires that Paul is playing psychological tricks on his wife, hoping to drive her mad. (He has a sinister reason for wishing to do such a thing). The significance of the title is twofold. The first that it evokes a sense of nostalgia for the gas-lit London of the Victorian past. The second is that the dimming of the gaslights in Bella's home is an important plot point.
This version has some similarities to the work of Alfred Hitchcock. (Hitchcock was later to make "Rope", another film based upon a Hamilton play, and "Suspicion", another film about a wife who comes to believe that her husband may have malign intentions towards her). Whereas Charles Boyer's character in the 1944 adaptation was outwardly charming and plausible, Anton Walbrook's Paul is a much more obvious villain, only bothering to hide his villainy beneath the thinnest veneer of gentlemanly charm. There are some similarities between Walbrook's character here and one of his best known roles, Boris Lermontov in "The Red Shoes". Lermontov is a cold, domineering bully whose bullying has a disastrous effect on Victoria, the heroine of that film, although there is an important difference between him and Paul, an evil figure who quite deliberately plans to cause psychological harm to his wife. Lermontov, by contrast, does not intend to cause any harm to Victoria, and is oblivious to the damage that he is doing. Diana Wynyard's Bella is similar to some Hitchcock heroines, especially the characters played by Joan Fontaine in "Rebecca" and "Suspicion" who initially seem weak and passive but later reveal hidden strengths of character.
It is a long time since I last saw the MGM version, so I will not attempt to compare the merits of the two films. This version was made by Thorold Dickinson, a well-known director in his day but largely forgotten today, possibly because he was never discovered by Hollywood in the way Hitchcock was and made all his films in Britain (apart from his final one, made in Israel). He also retired from making feature films at a comparatively young age and spent the rest of his career first working for the United Nations and then as an academic, becoming Britain's first Professor of Films. His version of "Gaslight", however, is a very effective suspense thriller, and the skill with which he handles his material, keeping the audience on the edge of their seats until the end, suggests that he deserves to be better known today. 7/10