Boyer does a wonderful job of making you hate him: he's truly one of the slimiest and most unpleasant of film noir villains. Brilliant performances and beautiful art direction and costumes, even if aspects of the plot stretch credulity.
Maybe this and the even better Double Indemnity split the Best Picture vote at the Oscars that year to allow Going my Way to win.
This movie was a big disappointment.
The viewer is miles ahead in the progression of the plot. The bad intentions of Boyer are obvious from the start (no ambiguity whatsover). Bergman is frustratingly completely submissive and stupid and we don't get to doubt about her sanity and experience what she's experiencing. Subtlety is nowhere to be found in the acting, everything is very theatrical. And there's no suspense at all.
I don't understand how it can possibly be considered a classic while I saw much better in Lang, Preminger, Wilder and of course Hitchcock filmographies around that era!
5/10
This was truly a masterpiece. I was very pleasantly suprised.
The acting from both Boyer and Bergman was incredible.
A very well thought out film, that keeps you on the edge of your seat till the end.
At no point does it feel stretched out, and it's very well built up.
Gaslight is about a woman (Ingrid Bergman) whose aunt was murdered when she was a child and who is now being driven insane by her husband (Charles Boyer) for reasons all his own, but that are obviously connected to that aunt. With a young Angela Lansbury as the trollopy, back-talking maid, May Whitty as the nosy but well-meaning neighbor, and Joseph Cotten as a possible white knight, there really isn't a wrong-footed bit of acting in the piece, but Boyer is particularly slimy, a textbook, abusive, manipulator of women (even if it's Bergman who took home the Oscar that year). The title evokes Victorian London and everything Gothic about the place - the fog, Ripperology - and we get that (in some ways, it borrows from Jane Eyre), but the gaslight is also a crucial clue that's part of Bergman's descent into madness, and the eventual resolution. Much better than its UK title, "Murder in Thornton Square", I hope you agree.
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ChrisReynolds
Boyer does a wonderful job of making you hate him: he's truly one of the slimiest and most unpleasant of film noir villains. Brilliant performances and beautiful art direction and costumes, even if aspects of the plot stretch credulity.Maybe this and the even better Double Indemnity split the Best Picture vote at the Oscars that year to allow Going my Way to win.
johnnyg
Definitely did a double take when I realized Angela Lansbury was playing the trollop.onuryz
It's shame that this marvellous flick dropped from Horror List!AlexDkad
This movie was a big disappointment.The viewer is miles ahead in the progression of the plot. The bad intentions of Boyer are obvious from the start (no ambiguity whatsover). Bergman is frustratingly completely submissive and stupid and we don't get to doubt about her sanity and experience what she's experiencing. Subtlety is nowhere to be found in the acting, everything is very theatrical. And there's no suspense at all.
I don't understand how it can possibly be considered a classic while I saw much better in Lang, Preminger, Wilder and of course Hitchcock filmographies around that era!
5/10
Barla
This was truly a masterpiece. I was very pleasantly suprised.The acting from both Boyer and Bergman was incredible.
A very well thought out film, that keeps you on the edge of your seat till the end.
At no point does it feel stretched out, and it's very well built up.
Wonderful film
Siskoid
Gaslight is about a woman (Ingrid Bergman) whose aunt was murdered when she was a child and who is now being driven insane by her husband (Charles Boyer) for reasons all his own, but that are obviously connected to that aunt. With a young Angela Lansbury as the trollopy, back-talking maid, May Whitty as the nosy but well-meaning neighbor, and Joseph Cotten as a possible white knight, there really isn't a wrong-footed bit of acting in the piece, but Boyer is particularly slimy, a textbook, abusive, manipulator of women (even if it's Bergman who took home the Oscar that year). The title evokes Victorian London and everything Gothic about the place - the fog, Ripperology - and we get that (in some ways, it borrows from Jane Eyre), but the gaslight is also a crucial clue that's part of Bergman's descent into madness, and the eventual resolution. Much better than its UK title, "Murder in Thornton Square", I hope you agree.seithscott
Great movie wonderful performance from Boyer and Bergman. The best of the two but not by much.johnnyg
Can't believe this got relegated to the Warner Archivemathiasa
far superior to the 1940 version, despite walbrook's absence.sonic death
jezivosi_reid
this has no place in the top film noir listSkyscore
http://www.afisha.ru/movie/166946/review/146072/