Gaslight (1940 film)
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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Gaslight (released in the United States as Angel Street) is a 1940 British psychological thriller film directed by Thorold Dickinson which stars Anton Walbrook and Diana Wynyard, and features Frank Pettingell. The film adheres more closely to the original play upon which it is based – Patrick Hamilton's Gas Light (1938) – than does the 1944 MGM remake. The play had been performed on Broadway as Angel Street, so when the MGM remake was released in the United States, it was given the same title as the American production.
Plot
In Pimlico, London, Alice Barlow (Marie Wright) is murdered by an unknown man, who then ransacks her house, ripping her furniture apart as if desperately searching for something. The house remains empty for many years, until newlyweds Paul and Bella Mallen move in. Bella (Diana Wynyard) soon finds herself misplacing small objects; and, before long, Paul (Anton Walbrook) has her believing she is losing her sanity. B. G. Rough (Frank Pettingell), a former detective involved in the original murder investigation, begins to suspect him of Alice Barlow's murder.
Paul lights the gas lamps to search the closed-off upper floors, which causes the rest of the lamps in the house to dim slightly. When Bella comments on the lights' dimming, he tells her that she is imagining things. Bella is persuaded that she is hearing noises, unaware that Paul enters the upper floors from the house next door. The sinister interpretation of the change in light levels is part of a larger pattern of deception to which Bella is subjected. Rough visits Bella and reveals that Paul is a bigamist; he is the wanted Louis Bauer, who has returned to the house to search for the rubies he was unable to find after the murder of his aunt, Alice Barlow.
Cast
- Anton Walbrook as Paul Mallen/Louis Bauer
- Diana Wynyard as Bella Mallen
- Frank Pettingell as B. G. Rough
- Cathleen Cordell as Nancy, the parlour maid
- Robert Newton as Vincent Ullswater
- Jimmy Hanley as Cobb
- Minnie Rayner as Elizabeth, the cook
- Marie Wright as Alice Barlow
- Aubrey Dexter as House Agent
- Mary Hinton as Lady Winterbourne
- Angus Morrison as Pianist
- Jack Barty as Chairman of Music Hall
- The Darmora Ballet
- Katie Johnson as Alice Barlow's maid (uncredited)
