![]() ![]() It's an excellent performance, but one in which the weight of the film is transferred, as it's supposed to be, over to the character here called Mallen, played by Anton Walbrook - the exact opposite of what Hollywood does with the story. Where Bergman has a soft look, Wynward's is more defined. Wynward is a good deal more internalized than Bergman and somehow seems less vulnerable. This version comes right to the point - Mallen wants to have his wife committed. In the '44 film, it was the wife's famous aunt who was murdered and seen by the young niece she meets her husband to be while she's studying voice and marries him, finally moving into the house where her aunt's murder took place. If you're familiar with the Boyer/Bergman "Gaslight," this "Gaslight" feels like it starts in the middle, as there is no backstory in this one, though Mallen remains a pianist. His motive in this version for wanting Bella declared insane is different from the Hollywood version, but his departure from the house each evening and the dimming of the gaslight is due to the same goal. He openly flirts with the maid (and takes it a lot further in this film) and embarrasses his wife in front of her. When she does, he makes sure she breaks down so everyone else knows she's crazy. Inside, Bella is slowly being driven mad by Mallen, as he accuses her of forgetting things, losing things, finally making her too paranoid to leave the house for long or to go out socially. Rough, the old detective, becomes interested in what Bauer is doing in England under another name, and starts watching the house. ![]() After the murder, he trashes the house searching for the jewels. Mallen has moved into a house with his wife Bella (Wynyard) where a vicious murder had occurred 20 years earlier by a robber searching for the resident's famed rubies. Mallen (Walbrook) as a man named Bauer, rather than a hot young detective recognizing the wife as the relative of a late opera singer who was once kind to him. In this version, the plot centers on a retired detective (Pettingel) recognizing a Mr. The stars here are Anton Walbrook, Diana Wynyard, Frank Pettingel, Robert Newton, and Cathleen Cordell. ![]() However, if you only plan on seeing one, see this one-it's just a better film!Ī strong story in the right hands can be made more than once with interesting results - and this is certainly true of the 1940 British film "Gaslight," remade as an extremely popular 1944 film by Hollywood. It's really a shame, too, as I am sure that those associated with the original must have wished they'd gotten all the attention the 1944 version received. The wonderful Anton Walbrook was a wonderful and even more menacing husband and I just could see no reason why the movie should have been remade. Having seen both versions, I found them awfully similar-but I would have to say that I preferred the original. However, recently the ORIGINAL version from 1940 has been discovered and has been shown on Turner Classic Movies. It seems that the big-wigs at the studio wanted to remake the film but pretend that it was an original Hollywood production so they bought up the prints and the remade film went on to be considered a "classic". Although Ingrid Bergman and Charles Boyer got a lot of press for the movie GASLIGHT, the film was actually a remake of a British film made only a few years earlier.
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