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Charles Boyer, Ingrid Bergman, Joseph Cotten, Dame May Whitty, Angela Lansbury ... see more see more... , Terry Moore , Barbara Everest , Emil Rameau , Edmund Breon , Halliwell Hobbes , Tom Stevenson , Heather Thatcher , Lawrence Grossmith , Jacob Gimpel , Wilson Benge , Leila Bennett , Arthur Blake , Lillian Bronson , Leonard Carey , Alec Craig , Al Ferguson , Helen Flint , Gibson Gowland , Joy Harrington , Si Jenks , Edwin Maxwell , Charles McNaughton , Clive Morgan , George Nokes , Elsa Prescott , Sid Saylor , Morgan Wallace , Eric Wilton , Eustace Wyatt , Arnold Bennett , Bobby Hale , Guy Zanette , Harry Adams , Maude Fealy , Pat Malone , Arthur Stone , Anton Walbrook , Diana Wynyard , Frank Pettingell , Cathleen Cordell , Robert Newton

Ingrid Bergman won her first of three Oscars for this suspense thriller, crafted with surprising tautness by normally genteel "women's picture" director George Cukor. Bergman stars as Paula Alquist, a... read more read more... late 19th century English singer studying music in Italy. However, Paula abandons her studies because she's fallen in love with dapper, handsome Gregory Anton (Charles Boyer). The couple marries and returns to the U.K. and a home inherited by Paula from her aunt, herself a famous singer, who was mysteriously murdered in the house ten years before. Once they have moved in, Gregory, who is in reality a jewel thief and the murderer of Paula's aunt, launches a campaign of terror designed to drive his new bride insane. Though Paula is certain that she sees the house's gaslights dim every evening and that there are strange noises coming from the attic, Gregory convinces Paula that she's imagining things. Gregory's efforts to make Paula unstable are aided by an impertinent maid, Nancy (teenager Angela Lansbury in her feature film debut). Meanwhile, a Scotland Yard inspector, Brian Cameron (Joseph Cotten), becomes suspicious of Gregory and sympathetic to Paula's plight. ~ Karl Williams, Rovi

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89% liked it

7,669 ratings

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88% liked it

17 critics

Unrated, 1 hr. 54 min.

Directed by: George Cukor, Thorold Dickinson

Release Date: May 11, 1944

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DVD Release Date: February 3, 2004

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Angela Lansbury Angela Lansbury in Gaslight Ingrid Bergman in Gaslight Gaslight Charles Boyer and Ingrid Bergman Charles Boyer and Ingrid Bergman Charles Boyer and Ingrid Bergman Angela Lansbury Ingrid Bergman in Gaslight Ingrid Bergman in Gaslight Charles Boyer and Ingrid Bergman in Gaslight Angela Lansbury in Gaslight Charles Boyer & Ingrid Bergman in Gaslight Gaslight Ingrid Bergman in Gaslight Ingrid Bergman in Gaslight Gaslight Gaslight
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Flixster Reviews (577)

  • moonrivers
    May 9, 2012
    moonrivers
    Remakes are often (and righteously) seen as the blight of the film industry but that is not the case here in this elegant reworking of a lean and muscular Brit classic. Hollywood's magic is in hard evidence with better writing, camera work, lighting and sound than the original. ... read more And then there is the cast. A woman in a fashionable London townhouse, seemingly alone, cut off, in doubt of her own sanity, wonders if she's ruined what once seemed a happy marriage. Bergman won an Oscar, but everyone brings home the bacon here.
  • lewiskendell
    April 20, 2011
    lewiskendell
    A very Hitchcockian thriller, if not close to the quality of the best movies by Hitchcock or his imitators. The plot (involving a woman who slowly seems to be losing her grip on reality...or is she?) probably was much more effective in 1944, now this kind of thing has been done s... read moreo many times that it seems painfully transparent from the very beginning. Gaslight isn't a bad movie, but it lacks the timeless quality that makes so many classics as good today (or even better) than they were when they were made.

    Kudos to Ingrid Bergman, though, who is mesmerizing in the last half of the movie. She's truly one of the greatest actresses of all time.
  • ajv2688
    October 15, 2010
    ajv2688
    Similar to other suspense movies of the forties, but still a pretty powerful story. I really like this movie.
  • flixsterman
    August 15, 2010
    flixsterman
    A superb psychological thriller about a husband who is slowly driving his wife insane (yeah, that never happens...)
  • bottcorecords1
    May 21, 2010
    bottcorecords1
    Ingrid Bergman is the victim of Charles Boyer's sadistic mindgames in 1944's "Gaslight", a gothic film noir set in turn-of-the-century London. Paula (Bergman) moves to Paris after finding her aunt, a famous singer, strangled to death in their home. While training to follow in h... read moreer aunt's performing footsteps, she's swept off her feet by the debonair pianist, Gregory Anton (Boyer, in an evil "Peppy La Pue" sort of performance). In no time, they're married, but things go quickly downhill for Paula, as Gregory first moves them into the house where her aunt was murdered and then systematically beats her sanity down with mind games designed to make her think she's going mad. The mystery here isn't so much whether or not she's going mad (we know she isnt'), but why her husband wants to do this to her. The suspense builds as we wonder how it's going to end, and who (or what) will, or can stop him. Ingrid Berman is fantastic as the tortured wife (as well she should be, she does it again in Alfred Hitchcock's "Notorious"), and I enjoyed the love triangle between her Boyer, and Joseph Cotten, who's Scotland Yard detective (without even an attempt at a British accent) gets one of those famous noir "hunches", and re-opens the case of the long dead singer who once autographed a glove for him. Director George Cukor does a near hitchcock-like job making of this film creepy and eerie, and I love the title and the role it plays in the film.
  • webalina
    November 27, 2009
    webalina
    Probably my favorite Ingrid Bergman performance. In this film she plays Paula, a young wife who is being slowly driven mad by her scheming husband, Gregory (Charles Boyer)...or is she? You actually can feel her pain and her panic as she starts losing her grip on reality. By the t... read moreime of the wonderful cliimax, you think maybe she really DID go around the bend. Boyer is condescending and evil as the husband. A very young, beautiful Angela Lansbury is a bit on the evil side too as the tacky-trashy Cockney-accented housekeeper Nancy. I enjoyed her performance because it's so different from the wise kindly women she played later in her career. And Joseph Cotten is good as the neighbor and Scotland Yard detective who puts together the pieces on what is really going on. The kindness he showed to Paula was touching to me. But this is ultimately Ingrid's movie. Brilliant.
  • arashxak
    August 30, 2008
    arashxak
    Far better than My overrated Fair Lardy
  • jjnxn
    August 19, 2007
    jjnxn
    atmospheric, great period detail. Ingrid Bergman and the rest of the cast are first rate.
  • hypathio7
    October 1, 2009
    hypathio7
    Lansbury and Cotten in supporting roles are wonderful. The tension is built carefully. The gas powered lights around the home Bergman and Boyer have moved into flicker with suspense. In this case, I think this version of the same basic story as Hitchcock's Suspicion, from thre... read moree years earlier, is the more fulfilling thriller.
  • streamofconsciousness
    August 28, 2009
    streamofconsciousness
    A pretty darn good psychological thriller, wherein a husband slowly tries to drive his wife mad by subtly manipulating the environment around her and then denying that her perception has any basis in reality.
    I love the setting- an old Victorian home right in London, England. I ... read morethought the acting was great but wasn't exactly blown away by Ingrid Bergman's acting considering she won an Oscar for Lead Actress that year.
    After I saw the film I heard the expression, "He's gaslighting her," which is an awesome use of the title of the film (which was originally a play.)

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Critic Reviews

Nell Minow
December 24, 2010
Nell Minow, Common Sense Media

Brilliant classic of mind-game suspense. Full Review

Steve Crum
December 21, 2006
Steve Crum, Dispatch-Tribune Newspapers

Classic drama-horror with put upon Bergman and suavely evil Boyer.

Emanuel Levy
July 5, 2006
Emanuel Levy, EmanuelLevy.Com

Soaked in paranoia, Cukor's superb pyschological thriller is a period film noir, just like Hitchcock's The Lodger and Hanover Square, both set in the Edwardian age. Full Review

Dennis Schwartz
December 8, 2004
Dennis Schwartz, Ozus' World Movie Reviews

A terrific atmospheric thriller. Full Review

Eric Henderson
February 11, 2004
Eric Henderson, Slant Magazine

Gaslight ultimately adds up to very little in the psychological mind-**** department. Full Review

John J. Puccio
February 10, 2004
John J. Puccio, Movie Metropolis

Although the 1940 edition rushes to tell its story, the 1944 rendition is content to linger over details of Victorian atmosphere, plush set designs, and spooky noises. Full Review

Chris Barsanti
January 23, 2004
Chris Barsanti, Filmcritic.com

a moderately entertaining variation on the old gothic thriller Full Review

Ken Hanke
December 1, 2002
Ken Hanke, Mountain Xpress (Asheville, NC)

Effective thriller, but inferior to the British original.

Tim Dirks
January 1, 2000
Tim Dirks, Tim Dirks' The Greatest Films

Gaslight (1944) (aka The Murder in Thornton Square) is a superb, definitive psychological suspense thriller from director George Cukor. Full Review

May 20, 2008
Variety

Click to read the article Full Review

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Gaslight Trivia

  • At seventeen, what actress made her screen debut in the movie Gaslight, earning an academy award nomination (but didn't win)?  Answer »
  • What was the first film that Angela Lansbury was in?  Answer »
  • In what movie did Angela Landsbury play a maid to a woman who was going insane?  Answer »
  • For which of the following films did Ingrid Bergman win a Best Actress Oscar?  Answer »
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