Gaslight

Best known for his “women’s pictures,” director George Cukor struck gold with Gaslight, based on Patrick Hamilton’s play, but even Cukor couldn’t have anticipated that his film (and, to be fair, the earlier British film adaptation in 1940) would have such a lasting impact that 80 years later the title itself would be used as a common verb. (Webster’s dictionary currently defines gaslight as “to attempt to make someone believe that he or she is going insane.”)  Ingrid Bergman won the Best Actress Academy Award for her performance as Paula Alquist, the niece of a famous opera star who left her house and its contents to Paula after her death, and Charles Boyer plays her conniving, new husband who works hard to “gaslight” her into an asylum so he can inherit the assets. Bergman’s slow descent into madness is masterfully done, particularly how she reacts so differently to the “good maid” Elizabeth (Barbara Everest) and the “bad maid” Nancy (17-year-old Angela Lansbury in her film debut). The couple’s initial entrance into the abandoned home on Thornton Square is gorgeously rendered; it’s as if they’ve stumbled upon a haunted mansion, its contents literally blanketed as if to suppress any vestiges of life. With a studio-made Edwardian backdrop to play with, Cukor uses soupy black shadows to stunning effect, for example, when Paula loses her brooch at the Tower of London and when she begs her husband not to leave her alone at his bedroom door. Perhaps the apogee of cinematographer Joseph Ruttenberg’s camera skill is an overhead shot from above the gas chandelier that zooms down to Paula’s terrified face on the bed as the strange footsteps attack her mind.