Film Review. Gaslight. The root of the expression Gaslighting.

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Spoiler alerts. Great to see this film is on free download on Youtube. This 1940 psychological horror film led indirectly to the popular memetic word ‘gaslighting’, decades later. The film is actually based on an established popular 1938 Victorian melodramatic stage play and it is quite faithful to the original version. Two remake versions, one starring Ingrid Bergman, were made later, but this is now regarded as the definitive take on the story. Plot wise, we see a wealthy socialite strangled to death by an unseen assailant in Pimlico, London. The killer ransacks the house but seems unable to find what he wants. Investigating police are baffled. 20 years later, newlyweds move into the property. They are Paul and Bella Mellon, played superbly by Anton Walbrook and Diana Wynard. Paul was played by Vincent Price in the original play. While Paul seems a polite, if aloof gentleman, his wife seems troubled, emotional and intense. At home, her jewellery keeps going inexplicably astray, only to turn up equally mysteriously somewhere else later on and she hears mysterious footsteps on the unoccupied floors above the family apartment. Worse, she sees the gas lamps flicker and flare in strange patterns. Her husband, who keeps finding the missing items, insists she is having a nervous breakdown and even warns that he might have to get her sectioned to an asylum if her delusions continue. Outside, an old plain clothes policeman (Frank Pettingill) who investigated the old murder at the house begins to get suspicious towards Paul Bellon, noting his resemblance to a man called Bauer, a leading suspect in the murder and starts stealthily looking into the couple’s relationship. He discovers more than he expected. Paul is indeed Bauer, who is seeking rubies he suspects are still hidden in the murder victim house he now owns. He is not only having an affair with a rather promiscuous servant girl, who is unwittingly telling the investigators much of what they need to know through a relationship she also has with one officer, but also has a wife in Australia, making him a bigamist. As Bella unwittingly stumbled on evidence of his twenty year old crime, without putting together the clues and working it out, Bauer is deliberately driving her insane, and he is hiding her things, while the gaslight trick is a result of him not only owning the family home but also covertly owning the adjoining next door property. In messing with the lights and creating noises from there he is making his wife imagine she is haunted or further losing her sanity. This film works because the antagonist is remarkably calm and convincing throughout, rather than playing his part like a wild eyed, moustache twirling obvious villain. It becomes a perfect study of family cruelty and subtle nastiness disguised as being helpful to a vulnerable woman in distress. Only towards the finale as his behaviour patterns unravel are the tables turned. This is a film that can still strike many chords for victims of domestic verbal abuse, (Paul never hits Bella) or as it can now be freely called, gaslighting. Some scenes still work brilliantly. At one point the investigator gets Bella’s brother, who he already knows mistrusts Paul, to turn up at the house unexpectedly. Paul gaslights him by saying that Bella refuses to see him and spells out that as the house owner, he has the right to evict him from the property. Bella sees her brother through the window as he leaves and asks her husband if he has been. Paul not only insists that she is mad for thinking she saw him, but also accuses her of writing to the brother behind his back (she hasn’t as the investigator has orchestrated that). The very attempt to stage an intervention has failed and given Paul even more leverage over Bella’s fragile state of mind. Even today, it is terrifying to see because for many people it is a reality (apart from houses full of concealed jewellery following a murder committed some time before). When we see politicians lie, media manipulation, people denying evidence that is right in front of them, victim-shaming, and other abuses of power, nationally, religiously or in individual relationships, we are seeing the Bauers of this world in action, gaslighting us until we see through their schemes once and for all. Not bad for a film that is 83 years old. The film is fortunate to survive at all. The makers of the 1944 remake sought out every known print of the preceding version and burnt them. Fortunately, years later the BFI found prints they had failed to get their mitts on. Youtube - the full movie ArthurChappell