It is not often that a proper name or title enters the common use of any language, but maybe the highest possible praise Gaslight could receive is the fact that the title is now a verb. To gaslight someone now is to do little deliberate things and blame articles disappearing or misplaced on a person in an effort to make them think they are losing their minds.
That is exactly what the suave sophisticated continental Charles Boyer is trying to do to his new bride Ingrid Bergman in the house that they live in. It was previously occupied by Bergman's aunt, a noted soprano who was murdered several years earlier.
A good mad act is always guaranteed to draw Oscar attention and in this case it got Ingrid Bergman her first Academy Award. She is really something to watch as the poor woman really starts to believe she's losing her mind.
Charles Boyer goes against type in this film. Usually the charming European of many nationalities besides his native French, Boyer starts out the film in a typical Boyer mold. But he gradually changes into a hardened stone cold killer. The audience ever so gradually realizes he didn't marry Bergman for love. Boyer was also nominated for a Best Actor Oscar, but no one was beating Bing Crosby that year in Going My Way.
Joseph Cotten plays the stalwart Scotland Yard inspector and a very young Angela Lansbury has an early part in Gaslight as a tart cockney maid.
George Cukor directs it all with a Hitchcock type flair that even the master of suspense would tip his hat to. In fact I'm surprised that Alfred Hitchcock didn't consider Gaslight as a film property for himself.
That is exactly what the suave sophisticated continental Charles Boyer is trying to do to his new bride Ingrid Bergman in the house that they live in. It was previously occupied by Bergman's aunt, a noted soprano who was murdered several years earlier.
A good mad act is always guaranteed to draw Oscar attention and in this case it got Ingrid Bergman her first Academy Award. She is really something to watch as the poor woman really starts to believe she's losing her mind.
Charles Boyer goes against type in this film. Usually the charming European of many nationalities besides his native French, Boyer starts out the film in a typical Boyer mold. But he gradually changes into a hardened stone cold killer. The audience ever so gradually realizes he didn't marry Bergman for love. Boyer was also nominated for a Best Actor Oscar, but no one was beating Bing Crosby that year in Going My Way.
Joseph Cotten plays the stalwart Scotland Yard inspector and a very young Angela Lansbury has an early part in Gaslight as a tart cockney maid.
George Cukor directs it all with a Hitchcock type flair that even the master of suspense would tip his hat to. In fact I'm surprised that Alfred Hitchcock didn't consider Gaslight as a film property for himself.