"Gaslight" Review

 

by Daniel White

"The rubies..."

The British Gaslight (1940) is an excellent melodrama, as good as George Cukor's MGM remake four years later. Truth be told, I enjoyed it even more. An economic 89 minutes, it runs 25 minutes less than the Hollywood version. Gone is the padded backstory about the murdered aunt and her niece's musical exploits. The first film concentrates acutely on the wicked husband's methodical scheme to destroy his wife's mental health. A product of Tinseltown's fervid imagination, the handsome Joseph Cotten character is nowhere to be found. Good riddance. The last thing our psychologically-scarred leading lady needs is another man after that horror show of a marriage. She'd be better off taking up with the sluttish maid, Nancy!

Directed by Thorold Dickinson, those familiar with Ingrid Bergman and Charles Boyer's version will recognize the story. Newlywed's Paul and Bella Mallen move into a house where the grisly murder of an elderly woman was committed twenty years before. The diabolical Anton Walbrook wastes no time in driving the cringing, weeping Diana Wynard bananas. Misplaced watches, missing brooches, pictures being plucked from the walls and hidden behind furniture. And, of course, the infamous gaslights, inexplicably dimming and flickering. In search of the rubies he failed to find when he strangled the previous resident, Anton will do anything to get his hands on them now, including sending poor Diana off the deep end.

I'm not going to debate who delivered a better performance as our troubled heroine. Both Wynard and Bergman are appropriately overwrought, giving sensitive, thoughtful portrayals. But I am going to throw down the gauntlet and declare Anton Walbrook the winner in the creepy husband category. He adds a theatrical, campy element to the part that outshines the Frenchman's gallant effort. Cathleen Cordell is more than acceptable as Nancy, filmdom's easiest parlor maid. She may not be as pouty-perfect as Angela Lansbury, but she'll do. As stated before, the removal of a potential future love interest for Bella/Paula is especially refreshing. Instead of suave Mr. Cotten, we get dumpy Frank Pettengill. A portly livery stable owner, and retired detective, he saves the embattled Bella. Rest assured though, he will not be riding off into the sunset with her on one of his charges. That, my friends, she will have to accomplish all on her own. Nice.

Based on the Patrick Hamilton play, Gas Light, and produced by British National Films, the film contains some moody cinematography by frequent Hitchcock collaborator, Bernard Knowles. Gaslight is available on YouTube.