Gaslight (1944)
#48 in my 2007 movie challenge was George Cukor’s Gaslight, a costlier remake of the 1940 UK film that was released in the US as Angel Street. MGM tried, unsuccessfully, to have all prints of the earlier film destroyed. It is included as an extra on the 2004 DVD. Ingrid Bergman is the niece of a famous singer who is murdered. Years later, a singer herself, she marries her pianist, played creepily by Charles Boyer. Cukor shows the audience Boyer is up to no good, though Bergman is kept in the dark, both by the story, and by Boyer, who is slowly trying to drive her mad. Joseph Cotten is the good guy policeman who decides to meddle, much like the policeman in Laura, then solves the mystery. A young Angela Lansbury stands out in her first role, as a saucy, sulky housemaid.
July 9th, 2007 at 1:36 pm
Your description is much better than the one on the TiVo. Now I wish I had watched it.
July 11th, 2007 at 2:09 pm
I’d watch it again, especially on DVD to compare it to the original. This is also why I base my watching decisions more on the Timeout guide than on Tivo’s all-too-brief descriptions. But even the Timeout guide can lead me wrong, as when I skipped that John Cusack/Billy Bob movie with Ice in the title.
July 11th, 2007 at 4:38 pm
Ice Harvest