Gaslight (1944 film)
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- This article is about the 1944 film Gaslight. For the 1940 film see Gaslight (1940 film).
The makers of this film attempted to have all copies of the 1940 version destroyed, but they were unsuccessful as copies of the older version have survived and critics are divided as to which is actually the better film.
The term "to gaslight someone" – to make someone think he or she is going insane – derives from the titles and subject matter of these two films.
Plot
The film begins after world-famous opera singer Alice Alquist has been murdered. The murderer apparently bolted before getting what it was that he had come for, something that belonged to Alice Alquist. He had been spooked by the young girl in the house who had surprised him in his dastardly deed. This turns out to be Paula (Ingrid Bergman), Alice's niece, who has been brought up by her aunt after her mother's death.
Paula is sent to Italy so that she can train to be an opera star. Her training is left in the hands of the same teacher who once trained Alice. She studies with him for years, all the while trying to forget that terrible night at number 9, Thornton Square in London where the murder took place.
She meets a man, Gregory Anton (Charles Boyer), and falls in love with him. She eventually ends her long tutelage under her aunt's old teacher and marries Gregory. He suggests that they go to live in London, and conveniently, Paula owns a house there; her aunt naturally bequeathed number 9, Thornton Square to her. They move in. The house's contents have remained undisturbed for almost a decade, but Paula is naturally reminded of that awful night by all her aunt's old things, especially the great protrait of her over the fireplace. Gregory suggests that they lock all Alice's things away in the loft, and Paula agrees.
Even before the things are locked away, there is a jarring moment in which Paula finds a letter tucked in a music book addressed to her aunt from a man named Sergius Bauer, and dated only two days before the murder. Upon her reading the name, Gregory almost has a fit, most dissonantly banging the keys on the piano that he has been playing. He quickly composes himself, however, and explains his outburst as one of frustration at the bad memories that the house brings back to his wife.
After Alice's things are packed away in the loft, and the door to the loft is blocked, things begin to take a turn for the bizarre. Paula loses a brooch at the Tower of London that Gregory has given her (and Gregory's love of jewels becomes apparent when he goes bug-eyed at the Crown Jewels). Paula cannot imagine how she came to lose it, as it was safely stored in her handbag. Also, other curious things happen. Pictures disappear from the walls of the house, and Gregory begins to insinuate that Paula is doing these odd things, but Paula has no recollection of doing such things.
Gregory does everything in his power to isolate his young, "mad" wife from other people, neither allowing her to go out, nor letting her have visitors. On the one occasion when he actually does take her out to a musical gathering at a friend's house, he shows Paula his watch chain, from which his watch has mysteriously disappeared. It is found in her handbag. She has a crying fit, and Gregory takes her home.
The young maid does not help the mood at number 9. Whenever she shows up, her face betrays a feeling of disdain, and Paula becomes convinced that Nancy (Angela Lansbury) loathes her.
Paula begins to "imagine" things. The gaslight in her room dims every evening after Gregory has gone out for his walk, but neither Nancy nor the hard-of-hearing Elizabeth will own up to having turned another gas jet on elsewhere in the house. Also, Paula hears footfalls above her room. No-one will believe that these things are actually happening.
However, they are happening. Gregory is using very cruel and devious methods to convince Paula that she is going mad, so that no-one will believe what she says, or possibly so that he can have her certified insane and get her out of the house. There is a frighteningly palpable reason for his apparently absurd, unkind behaviour. Unknown to Paula, Gregory actually sought her out in Italy, managed to win her heart, married her, and suggested that they live in London, all so that he could get into the house at number 9, Thornton Square. He is in fact Sergius Bauer, the man who wrote the letter in the music book (which Gregory later tries to convince Paula she imagined), and the man who murdered Alice Alquist. He still wants what he was looking for the night he murdered Paula's aunt: her jewels. He has been rummaging through Alice's belongings in the loft to find what he knows is there, but they are evidently well hidden, as it takes him quite a while to find them.
These activities explain the things that Paula has been "imagining", of course: The footfalls are her husband's. Also, the gaslight dims because Gregory – or Sergius – has been turning the gaslight in the loft on. These odd things only seem to happen when her husband goes out for his walk because in fact, he is not going for a walk, but slinking round into the mews to gain entry to his own house through a neighbouring empty house and over a shared roof to a skylight.
Nancy's disdain, it turns out, is for Gregory, not Paula. She can see that something is amiss in the household, but cannot seem to put her finger on what it is, except that her master is at the root of it all.
Paula might actually end up believing that she is utterly mad if not for a chance encounter with a stranger that day at the Tower of London. He turns out to be Inspector Brian Cameron of Scotland Yard (Joseph Cotten) who is intrigued when he believes he has seen someone whom he has thought to be dead, Paula being the very image of her late aunt, and Cameron being an admirer of Alice Alquist since childhood.
By enlisting the support – mostly unwitting – of Nancy and a local busybody (Dame May Whitty), and later also Elizabeth (although this support is witting), Cameron delves into the long-dead Alquist case, and eventually realizes what is going on, and knows that he has found the man who murdered Paula's aunt.
The dramatic conclusion comes as Cameron moves in for the arrest on the very evening when Gregory has at last found the jewels that he has so long been seeking.
The dénouement partly involves Paula indulging herself in a bit of revenge, psychologically torturing Gregory after he has been bound to a chair, tantalizing him with the idea that she will free him so that he can escape arrest, trial, and execution.
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