Gaslight

Gaslight or When cinema tries to destroy itself.
Patrick Hamilton is a brilliant British play-write who penned among other things Rope's End, which was the basis for Alfred Hitchcock's Rope. In 1938, he wrote Gas Light, a play about a woman driven crazy by the very man she loves so he can get his hands on some hidden jewels.







The play was filmed for TV with Judith Evelyn (Miss Lonelyheart in Rear Window) and Henry Daniell (Vincent Price appears in this Life Magazine picture) but the two adaptations that stand out today were made for the silver screen.

In 1940, British International Pictures produced a film directed by Thorold Dickinson starring Diana Wynyard (previously nominated for an Academy Award in Cavalcade). The suffocating story and its original source are not the only links to the world of Hitchcock.

The film is shot by Bernard Knowles who was Hitch's cinematographer throughout most of his British period. Actor Robert Newton (Most famous for playing Long John Silver in Disney's Treasure Island) had played in Hitchcock's last British film Jamaica Inn the previous year before the director headed to America.

Last but not least, the score was composed by little known British marvel Richard Addinsell, who later composed Under Capricorn, and conducted by Muir Mathieson who later conducted Bernard Herrmann's Vertigo when the 1957 musician strike prevented the composer from doing it himself.

Have you ever heard a musical theme which was so great that you felt you had known it all your life?
That's what happened to me when the credits rolled on that film. The music is that beautiful. A restored re-orchestrated medley was issued on CD but the score remains to be completely published.

The film was such a hit that it spun a remake by MGM starring Ingrid Bergman, Charles Boyer, Joseph Cotten, and introducing Angela Lansbury.

Charles Boyer, Ingrid Bergman & Joseph Cotten (1944 remake)

So how is this film relevant to this blog? Well, believe it or not, the success of a film can also be the cause of its loss! When MGM released their 1944 version of Gaslight, even though the previous film had been retitled "Angel Street" in the USA, they tried to have the negative and all prints of this film destroyed.

Allegedly thanks to director Thorold Dickinson, at least one print survived and the film is now available on DVD. Ironically, the print used on the DVD starts with an out-of-place MGM logo and music from a different film (I believe Jacques Tourneur's Romance of Radium), it then jump-cuts to the film's main title. The original musical intro was broadcast on the BBC a few years ago. Here it is:

And here is the film available in its entirety on youtube (with the MGM logo):

I also recommend the 1944 remake (This DVD has both films on it). Ingrid Bergman is simply divine as always and Angela Lansbury is devilishly pretty in her debut.

On the set of the 1944 remake

Here is a rare glimpse behind the scene of the two films during a very similar scene. If you're wondering what the two leading ladies are doing, you should know that corsets and other wardrobe requirements prevented actresses from sitting down and they used to recline on these "stand-up seats" between takes.


If you wish to see how a feeling of intense relief can be conveyed only through camera movements and music, watch the last shot of the original film. I find it mesmerizing.
[2014 update: the film is now available in a wonderful UK Blu-ray edition with a print restored by the BFI.]

That's all for today folks!

Read More