Gaslight (1940)

[mrs_emma_peel]

Gaslight (1940)

Film4 ... Wednesday 18th July 2012 ... 11.00-12.40pm

A rare showing of the original British classic murder-mystery and compelling psychological thriller ... based upon the 1938 play by Patrick Hamilton - the 1940 film was re-made in Hollywood in 1944 with Ingrid Bergman, Charles Boyer and Joseph Cotton. I think both versions are excellent.
Emma

Thorold Dickinson's classic thriller stars Anton Walbrook as Paul Mallen, who moves into a London town-house with his new bride Bella. Her family has a history of mental instability so, when objects go missing without reason and when she claims the gaslight dims of its own accord, he suggests she is beginning to lose her mind.

However, ex-policeman BG Rough, who now works as an ostler, recognises Mallen as the nephew of a woman brutally murdered in the very house in which he and his wife now live and, what's more, a house that still harbours a fortune in rubies that the killer never found. Could Mallen be somehow connected to the crime and is the parlour maid Nancy, a conspirator in her master's plans?

Anton Walbrook, Diana Wynyard, Frank Pettingell, Cathleen Cordell, Robert Newton, Minnie Rayner
Director: Thorold Dickinson

MGM reportedly tried to suppress release of the 1940 film in the United States, even to the point of trying to destroy the negative, so that it would not compete with their more publicized 1944 film.

Sources: DigiGuide/Wikipedia/IMDb

[dpgmel]

Excellent, I would recommend anyone to watch this version. Accept no substitutes.

[Steve Crook]

Gaslight (1940)

Film4 ... Wednesday 18th July 2012 ... 11.00-12.40pm

A rare showing of the original British classic murder-mystery and compelling psychological thriller ... based upon the 1938 play by Patrick Hamilton - the 1940 film was re-made in Hollywood in 1944 with Ingrid Bergman, Charles Boyer and Joseph Cotton. I think both versions are excellent.
Emma

The Bergman/Boyer/Cotton version is quite good, but the Anton Walbrook version is brilliant.

When Hollywood (MGM) made the 1944 version they did try to buy up all prints of the far superior 1940 version - luckily, they didn't manage to get them all

Steve

[dpgmel]

...and if ever a film was deserving of a legit DVD release !

[Windthrop]

The Bergman/Boyer/Cotton version is quite good, but the Anton Walbrook version is brilliant.

When Hollywood (MGM) made the 1944 version they did try to buy up all prints of the far superior 1940 version - luckily, they didn't manage to get them all

Steve

MGM tried to do the same with the Freddie March Jekyll and Hyde. Again fortunately they didn't succeed. Both the MGM films are almost smothered in big production values where as the originals are more sprightly and imaginative IMHO.

[mrs_emma_peel]

Superbly atmospheric scene with an incredibly powerful performance by the sublime Anton Walbrook.
Emma

[mrs_emma_peel]

I remember Gaslight - 1940 being shown on BBC4 - on Stephen Fry's personal favourites theme night.

The next showings on Film4/Film4+1 are on Monday 23rd July 2012 at 12.40-2.20pm/1.40-3.20pm.
I like the fect that Film4+1 doesn't have an on-screen +1 logo.

With Gaslight 1940 being a film of such high quality - I wonder if there have been any thoughts of a picture and audio restoration process programme - if a suitable print survives - I think the film deserves to be restored to its finest possible condition.
Emma

[mrs_emma_peel]

I thought I recognised the maid of Alice Barlow who runs out into the street screaming at the very start of the film - after Alice Barlow's murder and the ransacking of the house ... it was Katie Johnson (in a very brief uncredited part) 15 years later in 1955 she played the old lady in The Ladykillers.
Emma

[filmman79th]

Wonderful film. Wolbrook is terrific and it follows the play much more closely than the remake, particularly as pertains to the Pettingell/Cotton role. But I do prefer Bergman to Wynyard.

[siriami]

This used to be available as an extra on the US DVD of the Bergman/Cotten version. Print was in not too bad a condition, if I remember rightly. (Goes to search for DVD on shelf).........back again, and have checked - print quality is a little soft, but acceptable.
Not sure if this Warners US edition of "Gaslight" with both versions is still on sale though.
Alistair