Ahhh... romance. The thrill of meeting and courting that special someone, culminating in marriage. Yes, nothing puts quite a damper on all of it like murder.
Welcome to the world of Alfred Hitchcock, where the sinister may lie behind things as drab and commonplace as romance or a glass of milk.
John Fontaine won an academy award for her performance as Lina MacKinlaw, a vulnerable girl from a respectable home who is charmed astray by the philandering Johnny Aysgarth, played with great necessary insincerity by Cary Grant.
After marrying Johnny against her parents' better judgement, Lina begins to suspect that her dear hubby is the rat everyone says he is, maybe even worse.
What starts off as lying and pawning heirlooms to pay off gambling debts seems to develop into fraud and murder. Lina is convinced of Johnny's guilt by the mysterious circumstances surrounding the death of a friend, and fears she may be next.
Master of Suspense Alfred Hitchcock pulls out his full bag of media tricks, including placing a light bulb inside a suspicious glass of milk to give it a subtly ethereal glow.This was Hitch's fourth American film, and like his first ("Rebecca"), the actors, story, and setting are all of his native Britain.
"Gaslight" unwinds in poorly lit late nineteenth century England (the principle actors are French, Swedish, and American).
Paula Alquist (Ingrid Bergman, in another Academy Award winning performance) is an up and coming diva traumatized by the murder of her aunt, also a singer, whom she had lived with throughout her childhood.
While studying in Italy, her heart for music is stolen away by smoothee Gregory Anton (Charles Boyer), and they marry after knowing each other only a few weeks. Paula believes she can finally find peace with Gregory, but that, of course is not the case.
"Gaslight" sports an interesting supporting cast, including the always likable Joseph Cotten as a Scottland Yard investigator interested in Paula and her Aunt's unsolved murder.
Those of you familiar only with Angela Lansbury's TV role of Jessica Fletcher will get to see something very different.
Dame May Whitty (who has popped up in such classic suspensers as "Suspicion" and "The Lady Vanishes") is amusing as busybody and neighbor Miss Thwoites, Barbara Everest plays the couple's near-deaf cook.
