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Nabaza.net-The MarketPlace - Gaslight
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List Price: $14.95
Our Price: $13.95
Your Save: $ 1.00 ( 7% )
Availability: N/A
Manufacturer: MGM (Warner)
Starring: Charles Boyer, Ingrid Bergman, Joseph Cotten, Dame May Whitty, Angela Lansbury
Directed By: George Cukor
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Average Customer Rating:  
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Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Binding: VHS Tape
EAN: 9786301969314
Format: Black & White
ISBN: 6301969316
Label: MGM (Warner)
Manufacturer: MGM (Warner)
Number Of Items: 1
Publisher: MGM (Warner)
Release Date: 1994-11-29
Studio: MGM (Warner)
Theatrical Release Date: 1944-05-11
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Editorial Reviews:
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George Cukor helped transform a moody Victorian stage melodrama (previously filmed in Britain in 1939) into a gothic Hollywood romantic thriller. Ingrid Bergman stars as a meek, uncertain heiress courted and married in a whirlwind romance by the debonair Charles Boyer, but when they move back into her childhood home she begins losing her grip on reality and becomes convinced that her husband is trying to drive her insane. Joseph Cotten, rather stiff and colorless next to the anguished Bergman and charming and lively Boyer, is the heroic Scotland Yard detective who becomes enamored of the skittish woman who is slowly succumbing to madness. The grand, glorious sets and elegant photography recall Hitchcock's Rebecca, another lush Hollywood gothic melodrama of a retiring young wife overwhelmed by the history of her abode, and Gaslight is still assumed by some to be a Hitchcock film (the Bergman connection doesn't help the confusion). It's really a rather straightforward thriller with a forced plot device, but under Cukor's control the tightly constructed script is given the full MGM treatment, then reined in for intimate moments of harrowing suspense. Boyer brilliantly played off his continental lover reputation by adding an undercurrent of malevolence and Bergman won an Oscar for her haunted performance. It also marks the memorable debut of Angela Lansbury as a saucy maid unwittingly drawn into Boyer's master plan. --Sean Axmaker
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Spotlight customer reviews:
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Customer Rating:
Summary: True Classic
Comment: If you like clasics of this time period, this is a very good one. I do !
Customer Rating: 
Summary: iNCREDIBLY STUPID FILM
Comment: This film really made me angry and pissed off I bothered watching it. The characters were cardboard and I can't believe Ingrid Bergman starred in this junk.The main character totally lost it, believing all what her husband was saying about her. She was totally unthinking in the whole episode until it was revealed that her husband was a con.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Are you "gaslighting" me? (recommended)
Comment: When Roz asks: 'Are you "gaslighting" me?' in a first-season FRASIER episode, movie buffs instantly recall the tortured Paula (Ingrid Bergman) in GASLIGHT -- a movie classic so symbolic that it is immortalized in verb form. Paula's loyalty and sanity are tested to the limit as the deceitful Gregory (Charles Boyer) convinces his wife she "has no brain at'all" just like her mother. His obsession with gems, confiscation of letters, and mysterious disappearances in the night coincide with unexplained footsteps and dimming gas lanterns. Can her would-be hero (Joseph Cotten) save Paula from a fate worse than death? The conclusion may appear spellbinding to first-time viewers but in retrospect, provides sensible vindication. Each actor plays his part well but Bergman delivers considerable emotion in her facial expressions.
Movie quote: "I am mad. I'm always losing things and hiding things and I can never find them, I don't know where I've put them."
Customer Rating:
Summary: "I HEAR VOICES IN THE NIGHT, BUT I AM NOT GOING MAD!"
Comment: Charles Boyer and Ingrid Bergman star in this dazzling mystery about two newlyweds who move into the wife's family mansion. While at the house Paula (Bergman) fears she is going mad when she begins to imagine things. Such as the lights flickering and hearing voices in the middle of the night. Joseph Cotten co stars as a man after ten years digging up a file on the murder of Alice Alquist (Who was killed in that house). While seeing Paula nearly frightened to death at a concert he knows that she is not mad, she is being driven mad. If this macabe nightmare continues Paula could be placed in an insane asylum. A macabeish film that unlock hidden secrets of the mind. Starring Charles Boyer, Ingrid Bergman, Joseph Cotten and Dame May Whitty. Directed by George Cukor. 114 minutes.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Passive-aggressive behavior & effects, fabulously acted.
Comment: Books on passive-aggressive behavior often refer the reader to the 1944 movie Gaslight, where passive-aggressive behavior and its effects are splendidly acted by a cast of old time movie greats. The term "gaslighting" (attempting to drive someone crazy by hiding things and other psychologically coercive behavior originates from this movie.) Set in Victorian England, husband Gregory Anton (Charles Boyer) uses a variety of techniques to convince his wife Paula (Ingrid Bergman) that she's crazy. Smooth-talking, intensely romantic Gregory does a fine job of sweeping Ingrid Bergman's character off her feet and convincing her to marry him after only two weeks. They move into the Victorian townhouse she inherited from her famous opera star aunt who had been murdered there when Paula was a teenager. There the self-absorbed Gregory uses a variety of psychological tricks to drive Paula crazy-tricks still in use today like isolating her from visitors, commenting under the guise of concern that she's tired and forgetful, hiding jewelry, etc. He even tries to make her think the house is haunted. Ingrid Bergman does a brilliant job of playing the distressed Paula who increasingly doubts her own sanity and is driven to the brink of nervous breakdown. Gaslight showcases Bergman's acting better than Casablanca filmed two years prior.
Bergman and Boyer are helped by a fine cast of supporting actors. They have an intensely curious busybody old woman neighbor, played by Dame Mae Whitty who snoops on them as much as she can while she gardens or feeds the pigeons. She reminded me of Angela Lansbury in the television show "Murder She Wrote." Whitty, born in 1865, was a London stage actress beginning in the 1880s who found Hollywood success in her 70s! Another fine supporting actress was the feisty cockney-accented young maid. My friend with whom I watched the movie (whose review appears elsewhere on page) and I were sure we had seen her somewhere before in a variety of roles. Turns out she was a teenage Angela Lansbury in her movie debut--a role that earned her a best supporting actress nomination and showed that this woman was born to act! Another fine supporting actor was Joseph Cotten who played Scotland Yard investigator Brian Cameron.
It's really a tossup as to whether to give this movie four or five stars. I'm giving it four stars only because the movie has a slow beginning setting up the story that some modern movie viewers might find a bit boring. No spoilers, but this is one movie where it's well worth sticking around for the second half and the ending. You will be well-rewarded for any boredom you may have endured during the first half. :-)
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