169. Gaslight (1944)

Directed by George Cukor

Synopsis

Mindfucks ahoy! Guy drives lady insane slowly by mind-screwing her. A good detective finds out about it and all is solved!

Review

This was a fun film and for one particular reason, the character of Gregory/Sergis is one of the creepiest, evillest and smoothest characters in cinema. He drives Paula insane while always seemingly concerned with her and seeming devoted. The whole way he drives her insane is at the same time despicable and fascinating.

Ingrid Bergman also has a pretty good part here as the slowly going insane woman, she won an Oscar for this, which was well deserved. There are other points of interest here, firstly it is a costume drama and with that come all the clothing and sets, secondly it is the first film part for Angela Lansbury, yes, she of Murder she Wrote who got an Oscar nomination for this, good on her! And then you have the always great Joseph Cotton here.

I highly recommend this one, the plot really has no surprises, but it is so well performed that you do get some kind of emotional rapport with the characters. Definitely something to check out if you haven't.

Final Grade

9/10

Trivia

From Wikipedia:

From the film's title, "gaslighting" acquired the meaning of ruthlessly manipulating an individual, for nefarious reasons, into believing something other than the truth.

You can get the whole thing on Youtube, here you go for part one: