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Gaslight
(1944)
In George Cukor's dramatic mystery-thriller, based
on the 1938 play by Patrick Hamilton:
- the scene of the early train journey by Paula Alquist
(Ingrid Bergman) to Lake Como, when she conversed with Miss Thwaites
(Dame May Whitty) in a compartment - the garrulous Englishwoman
loved murder mysteries, and was reminded of the 'real, live murder" that
occurred in Paula's murdered aunt's London home ten years earlier: "It
was a most mysterious case. They never found out who killed her.
They never even found a motive"; the tragic recollection of
the unsolved murder case where her Aunt Alquist was murdered was
un-nerving to the meek and disconcerted Paula
- the domination and slow destruction of wife Paula
Alquist Anton's (Ingrid Bergman) sanity by her manipulative and greed-obsessed
but charming husband Gregory Anton (Charles Boyer), during his surreptitious
search for her aunt's valuable jewels, where they now lived in the
London house - the ancestral home at 9 Thornton Square - that she
had inherited from her dead aunt
- the scene of Paula's discovery of an incriminating
piece of evidence - one of her aunt's old letters inside a score,
written by her aunt's murderer (Sergis Bauer) two days before the
homicide; Gregory violently snatched the letter from her hands
- Gregory's flirtations with young, teenaged Nancy Oliver
(Angela Lansbury in her film debut), the recently-hired house-maid,
to slowly, menacingly, and seductively drive his innocent young wife
mad; in Paula's presence, he flirted with the maid (about her beat-policeman
boyfriend) and suggested that the cheeky young girl help restore
his wife's youthfulness: "I was wondering whether you might
not care to pass some of your secrets on to your mistress and help
her get rid of her pallor"
- the beginning of Gregory's ploys to make Paula go
crazy, including a missing family heirloom brooch in her purse, gaslights
mysteriously dimming, footsteps from the third floor attic above,
a missing framed picture (causing Paula fears that she was a kleptomaniac),
etc., and her feelings of panic: "I hear noises and footsteps.
I imagine things, that there are people over the house. I'm frightened,
and of myself too"
- the search through Paula's purse at the Dalroy's
musical concert party and the discovery of Gregory's missing pocket
watch in her handbag - causing Paula's serious breakdown when they
returned home; Paula asked: "Gregory, are you trying to tell
me I'm insane?...But that's what you think, isn't it? That's what
you've been hinting and suggesting for months now, ever since the
day I lost your brooch. That's when it all began. No, no, no, it
began before that. The first day here when I found that letter" -
but he denied that the letter even existed
- in the ultimate conclusion, suspicious Scotland Yard
detective Brian Cameron (Joseph Cotten) searched through Gregory's
locked desk with Paula, where the letter from Sergis Bauer ten years
earlier was hidden away: "I was right. There was a letter...I
found this. But my husband said I dreamed. And now it's here. It's
been here the whole time"; it clearly revealed that Gregory
(aka Sergius Bauer) had in fact murdered Paula's aunt in the same
home located at Number 9 Thornton Square in London, England
- Cameron assured Paula: "You're not going out
of your mind. You're slowly and systematically being driven out of
your mind"; he had become convinced that Gregory spent his nights
methodically hunting and searching through her aunt's possessions
in search of her missing jewelry
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Cameron: "You're not going out of your mind"
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Vengeful Accusations Against Husband
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- Paula's final scene of psychological retribution
- including her vengeful and scornful statement against her husband,
who was tied by rope to a chair: "If I were not mad, I could
have helped you. Whatever you had done, I could have pitied and
protected you. But because I am mad, I hate you. Because I am mad,
I have betrayed you. And because I'm mad, I'm rejoicing in my heart,
without a shred of pity, without a shred of regret, watching you
go with glory in my heart!"
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Miss Thwaites (Dame May Whitty) and Murder Mysteries
Paula's Discovery of the Incriminating Letter From Sergis
Bauer (aka Gregory Anton)
Gregory's Flirtations with Saucy Housemaid Nancy
(Angela Lansbury)
The Missing Framed Picture
Gregory with Wife Paula at Musical Concert
Going Crazy
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