Reeling Backward: Gaslight (1944)

Ingrid Bergman won an Oscar for her portrayal of a new wife being slowly driven insane by her nefarious husband, though the film itself has been elbowed aside by the pop culture term it spawned.

“Gaslight” is a great example of the long tail of popular culture — particularly the internet, which is the ultimate tail-extender.

The 1944 psychological thriller starring Ingrid Bergman as a woman whose husband is trying to drive her insane was well-regarded in its time, and even won her her first Academy Award. But it’s the derivation of its name, “gaslighting,” that is probably better known these days.

It was used in some 1950s comedy sketches and revived by New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd in the ‘90s, but really took off in the last 15 years. Today it’s most commonly used in politics, as an accusation that some person or group is attempting to convince everyone of the truth (or untruth) of something despite ample evidence otherwise.

I wonder how many people regularly encounter or use the term without having ever seen the movie. I was one of them, and decided it was time to rectify the oversight.

I’ll not try to convince you I thought it was a splendid masterpiece. Frankly, it’s a well-made film that has aged pretty badly.

Despite a terrifically emotional performance by Bergman and its period setting in the late 1800s, it registers as rather stage-y and contrived. It seems quite a stretch to buy that a man could make a woman disbelieve her own mind simply by hiding a few items and claiming she misplaced them, or his titular trick of lowering the gas flames in her room and pretending she’s the only one who sees it.

It’s a story that perhaps registered differently pre-feminism, when many people thought women had inferior intellects and tender psyches that could be exploited. And I can see why feminist movie critics have embraced the film as another line item in their boundless ledger of the evils of menfolk.

I have to say, I think the primary failing of the picture is Bergman’s two leading men, Charles Boyer and Joseph Cotten. Boyer — who actually received top billing due to a contractual dispute between studios — plays her husband, Gregory Anton, who sweeps her up in a two-week romance as her piano accompanist in her music lessons in Italy, then manipulates her into returning to her London home where her aunt, a famous singer, was murdered a decade earlier.

I’ll jump to the end — no spoiler warnings after 80 years — where Paula Alquist (Bergman) learns it was Gregory who murdered her aunt due to his obsession with her famous hidden jewels. So he has come up with an elaborate scheme to find her niece, woo and marry her, return to the scene of the crime and conduct a months-long campaign to drive her batty to give him time to continue his search for the jewels.

Cotten is the playboy Scotland Yard inspector, Brian Cameron, who admired Paula’s aunt as a boy, and fritters about the edges of the plot until it’s time for him to put Gregory in the clink. It’s a paper-thin part, as written and performed.

This is one of those plots with holes big enough to drive a truck through. Let’s start with the fact that it’s established that Paula’s aunt’s house on Thornton Square, which she inherited, has set unoccupied for 10 years with all the aunt’s stuff in it, and Gregory gains access through the skylight from the alley behind it. So there’s no reason for him to live there to conduct his search.

Indeed, it would go much faster without Paula and the servants around to impede him. It’s the sound of his rummaging about in the attic that is one of the chief events that starts to convince Paula she’s lost her mind.

Barring that, if he wants unfettered space to find the jewels, which not just kill Paula instead of driving her insane? He’s already murdered once in his quest for the jewels, and changed his name and persona to hide his tracks. Why wouldn’t he do it again, perhaps with a little subtlety to make it seem like an accident?

Honestly, it would make the whole movie much simpler and more sinister if Gregory was just toying with Paula’s sanity because he’s a sick bastard who gets enjoyment out of it. This whole thing with the jewels smells of a writer’s Rube Golberg convolutions.

The movie was based on the play “Gas Light” by Patrick Hamilton, which was a big hit, as was the 1940 British film adaptation starring Anton Walbrook and Diana Wynyard. MGM, in buying the rights, actually insisted that every negative of the earlier movie be destroyed, though some survived. The 1944 film departs greatly from its source material, I understand.

It’s also notable for the first screen role of Angela Lansbury as the Antons’ saucy young tart of a maid, Nancy. She gets to throw lots of sneer toward her mistress, and even flirt with the master. Nancy is also carrying on with Williams (Tom Stevenson), a handsome young constable Brian enlists to snoop about the neighborhood.

I also appreciated the character of the elderly Miss Thwaites (May Whitty), a busybody denizen of Thornton Square who is obsessed with the neighborhood’s famous murder and continually tries to drop in on Paula so she can conduct some of her own amateur sleuthing.

Frankly, I wish she was in the movie more.

Despite the dastardly nature of the story, there’s a stubborn comedic undercurrent to the doings that I think undercuts the suffering of Paula. For example, Cotten’s character is a churlish fellow whose every utterance is a quip of some sort.

Meanwhile, Bergman is acting her heart out as the little lost girl, her face growing wan under the heat of Gregory’s charming manipulation. One could almost segue into a version where her feverish swooning is played for laughs.

Director George Cukor was known for much lighter fare — “My Fair Lady,” “Adam’s Rib,” “Born Yesterday,” “The Philadelphia Story.” I think faced with a tale of terror and psychological manipulation, he ran home to mama a little bit. I quiver at the thought of this material in the hands of say, Orson Welles or Alfred Hitchcock.

“Gaslight” was certainly taken very seriously at the time. In addition to Bergman’s Oscar, it also won another for art direction, and also earned nods for best actor (Boyer — undeserved imho), supporting actress (Lansbury — deserved), cinematography and screenplay (by John L. Balderston, Walter Reisch and John Van Druten).

Gaslighting as a term appears here to stay, while “Gaslight” the film seems to have a sputtering flame. I’m glad I caught up with it, even if it doesn’t quite live up to its fading reputation.