Product Description

Beautiful and trusting, Paula Anton is slowly tormented by mysterious happenings in her luxurious Victorian home. The suspect is her devoted husband. But viewing the world through the dim glow of the gaslight, it is difficult to tell what is real and what is imagined.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #2538 in DVD
• Brand: Warner Brothers
• Released on: 2004-02-03
• Rating: NR (Not Rated)
• Aspect ratio: 1.33:1
• Formats: Closed-captioned, Color, Dubbed, DVD, Subtitled, NTSC
• Original language: English, French
• Subtitled in: English, Spanish, French
• Dubbed in: French
• Number of discs: 1
• Dimensions: .25 pounds
• Running time: 114 minutes

Amazon.com
George Cukor helped transform a moody Victorian stage melodrama (previously filmed in Britain in 1939) into a gothic Hollywood romantic thriller. Ingrid Bergman stars as a meek, uncertain heiress courted and married in a whirlwind romance by the debonair Charles Boyer, but when they move back into her childhood home she begins losing her grip on reality and becomes convinced that her husband is trying to drive her insane. Joseph Cotten, rather stiff and colorless next to the anguished Bergman and charming and lively Boyer, is the heroic Scotland Yard detective who becomes enamored of the skittish woman who is slowly succumbing to madness. The grand, glorious sets and elegant photography recall Hitchcock's Rebecca, another lush Hollywood gothic melodrama of a retiring young wife overwhelmed by the history of her abode, and Gaslight is still assumed by some to be a Hitchcock film (the Bergman connection doesn't help the confusion). It's really a rather straightforward thriller with a forced plot device, but under Cukor's control the tightly constructed script is given the full MGM treatment, then reined in for intimate moments of harrowing suspense. Boyer brilliantly played off his continental lover reputation by adding an undercurrent of malevolence and Bergman won an Oscar for her haunted performance. It also marks the memorable debut of Angela Lansbury as a saucy maid unwittingly drawn into Boyer's master plan. --Sean Axmaker

Customer Reviews

Hallelujah!
GASLIGHT is finally on DVD! And not just the 1944 suspense classic. This edition includes the complete British GASLIGHT made just a few years before in 1940. For years MGM actively supressed the older film giving rise to the legend that it was a far superior film. Now finally film buffs can view both and decide for themselves.

Both are terrific movies. For me, while the British version is leaner and faster, the Cukor film is by far the greater of the two. The relationship between Walbrook and Wynyard in the 1940 version is a well-played but two dimensional depiction of a tormentor and his victim. Boyer's and Bergman's characters are more complex and subtle in the 1944 film. There is a genuine romantic/sexual energy between them. While Boyer is sinister he also very charming and attractive. And you watch as the once-vibrant Bergman gives up her self confidence and becomes emotionally dependent on Boyer a little bit at a time. And what can you say about the amoral delinquent maid of Angela Lansbury? That alone is worth the price of admission!

A great movie and a very good movie. Buy the DVD and enjoy them both!

Chilling thriller with Charles Boyer at his best!
"Gaslight" (the 1944 version) is one of the best suspense classics I can think of that's not directed by Hitchcock, and the casting was simply flawless. Ingrid Bergman gives a excellent performance as a naive young woman ("Paula") who's nearly driven insane by her sinister, greedy husband, "Gregory" (played by Charles Boyer). Joseph Cotten plays the detective who comes to Paula's rescue just when she's almost lost her sanity. It is he who helps Paula finally realize that Gregory had only married her so that he could find very valuable jewels supposedly hidden in her house years ago. Charles Boyer is great even playing such an unlikable villian, and Dame May Whitty along with then 18-year-old Angela Lansbury in her film debut (who was nominated for best supporting actress) add great support to the main stars. This is truly an awesome dvd, and it includes the 1940 British version of "Gaslight" as well as a documentary "Reflections on Gaslight", the original trailer, and footage of Ingrid Bergman accepting her best actress oscar at the 1944 Academy Awards ceremony! This classic thriller is highly recommended.

Almost lost forever, this is a cinematic treasure
After seeing Anton Walbrook in "49th Parallel" (1941), "The Life and Times of Colonel Blimp" (1943), "Red Shoes" (1948), I am definitely a Walbrook fan. His acting is skilled and magical. This amazing talent was clearly borne out in the 1940 British version of "Gaslight", which I believe to be vastly superior to the slick, Hollywood remake in 1944 with Boyer and Bergman. Overall, Walbrook's performance is just more psychologically correct as the consummate narcissistic, evil killer, who brings his wife, played by Diana Wynyard, repeatedly up, then down with surprising dramatic intensity, in his relentless plan to drive her mad. In the Hollywood remake, I can never quite believe that Bergman's overdone beauty is even physically suited to the role of a victimized, Victorian female, in fact, she seems like she could knock Boyer out, at any time. Not surprisingly, the British version clearly portrays the Victorian social of dominance of men, and in particular, husbands who could have their spouses involuntarily committed to an asylum, simply by summoning a doctor. The painful reality of female status and vulnerability in Victorian England was also sensationally portrayed in the plots of novels like "Jane Eyre" by Bronte, "The Woman in White" by Wilkie Collins, "Lady Audley's Secret" by Mary Elizabeth Braddon, (all of which I highly recommend). Someday, I hope the 1940 British version of "Gaslight" with Walbrook will be restored or remastered to the best optical and sound quality possible. It simply deserves to be enjoyed, appreciated and treasured, despite MGM's best efforts to have it suppressed, forever. At $4.99 it's a steal!