GASLIGHT

This story is set in late Victorian England, a time when lighting was by gas rather than electricity.  It was also a time when the legal rights of a married woman amounted to very little. So a woman needed to choose her husband very carefully. 

Unfortunately young Paula (an Oscar winning performance by Ingrid Bergman) is so swept away by handsome and charming pianist, Gregory (a foreigner to boot) that they marry within a weeks of meeting.

Unlike the titular character in 'The Heiress', Paula has no father to warn her about men who might be after her fortune, because her parents died when she was young, so instead she was brought up by her aunt, a famous opera singer.  Tragically, ten years before the start of the film Paula's aunt was brutally murdered in her home in London (9 Thornton Square).

As a result it seems that ever since that traumatic event Paula has lived in Italy, or at least not in London.

So the last place Paula wants to return to after she is married is 9 Thornton Square, but Gregory insists that it is the perfect place for them to settle down in.  

Very soon Paula starts to feel isolated because Gregory discourages any visitors, and Paula can't even feel comfortable at home because the new maid, Nancy, whom Gregory chose is an insolent flibbertigibbet who treats Paula with ill-concealed disdain (Nancy is played by 17-year old Angela Lansbury in her film debut).

Mind you Gregory's attitude towards Paula isn’t much better, what with his accusations that she is forgetting things, and mislaying or even stealing objects.  He also disappears every evening, supposedly to a studio to do some composing, leaving Paula all alone in the large house but for the odd servant.  She often hears odd noises coming from the loft (which has been barricaded up), and mysteriously her gaslight sometimes flickers indicating someone else in the house has switched a light on or off.

As a result of all of this Paula starts to wonder if she is losing her mind.

These scenes in which Gregory humiliates and abuses Paula are hard to watch thanks to the fine performances from Bergman and Charles Boyer.  

He is constantly in danger of overstepping the mark, but he always manages to find a way of pulling back so as not to shatter Paula's delusion that Gregory loves her.  

Their relationship is so believable that eventually the term 'gaslighting' entered mainstream vocabulary, as a way of describing a type of mainly male behaviour which has existed for time immemorial.

Things are looking very bad for Paula when Gregory tells her that he has learned that her mother went mad and ended up in an asylum.  Accordingly (and he doesn’t look too upset at the prospect) he is going to get a couple of doctors to certify Paula insane.

Fortunately salvation is at hand in the form of Scotland Yard detective, Cameron, played by dependable Joseph Cotten, who has been taking a close personal interest in the goings on at 9 Thornton Square.  

The concluding scenes are a splendid relief, starting with Cameron at last managing to meet Paula in her house to reassure her that she’s not going crazy, as he tries to get to the bottom of what Gregory is up to.

The answer is not that surprising if you’re a connoisseur of crime detective fiction for it turns out that it was Gregory himself who murdered Paula’s aunt all those years ago, when she surprised him in the act of searching for some extremely valuable jewels which she owned.

His cunning plan in marrying Paula was to get inside the house so as to continue searching for those jewels, which he is obsessed with.  

Each evening he has been entering the loft via the skylight so as to search through the aunt’s possessions stored there.  

Getting Paula committed to an asylum would of course make his searching that much easier.

When Gregory returns unexpectedly to the house we get the most suspenseful scene in the film when the cook Elizabeth protects Paula by denying that any man has been in the house that evening, even though this has the effect of making Paula doubt her sanity again.

But all's well that ends well because Gregory is swiftly arrested, and tied up.  Cameron lets Paula have a few moments alone with her husband, giving us a satisfyingly cathartic scene.  

The scales having fallen from her eyes Paula is able to vent her full fury on her husband.  When he has the nerve to plead with her to help him escape she finds a very effective and appropriate way of not doing so, by pretending to be mad. 

To end on a happy note it seems that Gregory might be already married (the cad) and there is naturally the prospect of a romance between Cameron and Paula.

As something of a nit-picker I was left with one issue as to the plot, namely that the length of time between the murder and Gregory marrying Paula, at ten years, seems excessive.  It also raises the question of whether Gregory's meeting and marrying Paula was pure chance or had he arranged it?  If the latter, what took him so long?  And are we really supposed to believe that an attractive and wealthy young woman such as Paula could have lived for ten years in Italy of all places without having a serious love affair?  

Anyway putting these minor quibbles to one side, this is an atmospheric and gripping tale dominated by the two central performances.  The role of Paula is a perfect one for Bergman's acting skills whilst Boyer creates a memorable villain. 

Director George Cukor was a dab hand at translating stage plays to the screen, even if a suspenseful psychological drama was not an obvious choice for him, and he doesn't disappoint with this classic.