Gaslight (1944)

A famous opera star, Alice Alquist, has been strangled to death in a townhouse at Number 9 Thornton Square in Gaslight Era London, and her murderer has never been found.

Her niece, Paula Alquist (Ingrid Bergman), is sent away to Italy where she studies music with Signore Guardi (Emil Rameau) and falls in love with his pianist, Gregory Anton (Charles Boyer), whom she's only known for a couple of weeks.

When Gregory expresses his longing to live in London, she tells him of the house her aunt left her. Consequently, they marry and move there, where Paula re-encounters Miss Thwaites (Dame May Whitty), a busybody she met on the train to Como the previous month in Italy.

Paula starts losing and misplacing things, much to her chagrin, including a brooch that Gregory gave her, one that belonged to his mother, and his grandmother before that. Soon, their house staff is in place – a slightly hard-of-hearing cook, Elizabeth (Barbara Everest), and a saucy new housemaid, Nancy (Angela Lansbury).

Brian Cameron (Joseph Cotten), a Scotland Yard detective who once met and admired Paula's aunt, becomes suspicious and is convinced something strange is going on. He learns that Alice Alquist's jewels disappeared after her murder and has a bachelor constable assigned to the town square, to add another pair of eyes to the house.

It's only natural that Paula develops a persecution complex and comes to believe that she's become a kleptomaniac. To make matters worse, Gregory becomes terser, cross, demanding, and accusative of her. Paula is so confused, and thinks she is going mad because she hears noises and footsteps in the house at night.

Eventually, we learn that Gregory is actually Sergius Bauer, her aunt's murderer, and he's manipulated everything to facilitate searching for the hidden jewels while ensuring that Paula is certified as insane and put away.

But never fear, Scotland Yard is here.

Gaslight, which was based on Patrick Hamilton's 1941 Broadway play, Angel Street, was 17-year-old Angela Lansbury's film debut. At the time, she had a job wrapping packages at Bullocks Department Store in Los Angeles. Her boss didn't want her to quit, so he offered to match her MGM salary. He had to withdraw the offer when he found out she'd be earning $500 a week doing the movie, a far cry from the $27 a week she was being paid at the store.

Hollywood stars Irene Dunn and Hedy Lamarr both turned down the role of Paula Alquist, which went to Ingrid Bergman.

By the way, Miss Bergman was much taller than her co-star and romantic interest, Charles Boyer. So in their train station kissing scene, he needed to stand on a box. Unfortunately, she kept kicking the box inadvertently, resulting in the scene being reshot quite a few times.

Ingrid Bergman won the Best Actress Oscar; Gaslight was honored with a second Oscar for Best Art Direction-Interior Decoration, Black-and-White. It was also nominated for five more Academy Awards, including Best Actor (Charles Boyer), Best Supporting Actress (Angela Lansbury), and Best Picture.

Gaslight is not a mystery in the purest sense (we know who the killer is pretty early in the film), but rather, a stylish thriller, an excellent example of why I love old black and white movies.

Grade: A-