Wizard-8 I did see the MGM remake years ago, but so much time has passed since I saw it that I have forgotten what it was like. I suspect that this original version is a lot better. For one thing, it runs at a lean 84 minutes while the MGM remake runs about a half hour longer. There is no padding - every scene serves a purpose. The story telling here keeps you interested even though viewers who have not heard what the movie is about before sitting down to watch it may be a bit confused at first as to just what is going on. (To those viewers, don't worry - everything becomes clear eventually.) The movie is well directed, with production values that stand up to major Hollywood studio movies of the time, and with a great deal of tension throughout. A lot of this tension has to be credited to actor Anton Walbrook - he is incredibly cold and heartless as the lead, and you'll find him simultaneously creepy and hateful... and hope he'll get what's coming to him. By the way, though the movie contains some themes mature for the time, by today's standards it's quite safe for kids, so it may be a good choice if you want to introduce classic cinema to your children - they won't be bored.

Spikeopath Gaslight is directed by Thorold Dickinson and co-written by A.R. Rawlinson and Bridget Boland, who adapt from Patrick Hamilton's play Gas Light (1938). It stars Anton Walbrook, Diana Wynyard, Frank Pettingell, Cathleen Cordell and Robert Newton. Music is by Richard Addinsell and photography by Bernard Knowles.Alice Barlow is murdered in her home by an unknown man, who proceeds to ransack the house looking for some valuable rubies belonging to the deceased. After sitting empty for years, Alice's house finally gets new owners, Paul (Walbrook) and Bella (Wynyard) Mallen. Not long after moving in Bella finds she may be losing her mind as she keeps misplacing things, hiding objects, imagining strange noises upstairs and convincing herself that the gaslights are weirdly dimming. All is not as it seems in this part of Pimlico Square…. Not as famous as MGM's more glossy version released in 1944, this is, however, every bit the equal of the Ingrid Bergman Oscar grabber. Though stories of MGM to burning the negatives of this film have over the years been embellished, it's true that they did all they could to suppress the release of the film in America. Thing is, they needn't have worried, for Dickinson's film is a very British piece anyway, certainly you feel that their own American produced version would still have had the same popularity that it ultimately had. Dickinson's film is a period melodrama dealing in psychological manipulation whilst casting a roving eye over the British class system in place at the time. There's also a caustic glance at the woman's place in the home, here poor Bella (Wynyard wonderfully correct in portrayal) just wants to be a good wife and be friendly in the neighbourhood, but her life as written is one defined by pure male dominance. This lets in Walbrook, who excels as Paul, ice cold, suave, sinister and effectively calm, you have to ask, what the hell did Bella see in this guy in the first place? Mood is always on the edge of unease, as Bella's mind starts to unravel and with the oppression that comes with the film mostly being set in this one London square, Gaslight starts to gnaw away at the senses. Knowles' monochrome photography dallies in ominous shadows, neatly cloaking the excellent sets in a menacing sheen, and Dickinson (The Arsenal Stadium Mystery) has a gift for tonal pacing and camera work that's not unlike a certain Mr. Hitchcock.It's not perfect, secondary characters could have done with more flesh on the bones and Addinsell's music doesn't always hit the right atmospheric notes. But small moans aside, this is still a fine exponent of the period thriller drama. 8/10

Maddyclassicfilms If you mention Gaslight most people will automatically think of the 1944 version starring Ingrid Bergman,Charles Boyer and Joseph Cotton and sadly not of this earlier British film.That is such a great shame this British version is one of the best films about psychological torment and suspense ever made. Dripping with Gothic shadows and atmosphere it also features an unforgettable central performance by Anton Walbrook which is as chilling now as it was upon the films release.Gaslight is directed by Thorold Dickinson, is based on the stage play by Patrick Hamilton and stars Anton Walbrook, Diana Wynyard and Frank Pettingell.The film begins one night at number 12,Pimlico Square. An elderly lady is murdered by a man who's face we never see.After killing her the man searches the house for some jewels which he never finds.Twenty years later the now empty house is once again occupied, this time by Paul Mallen(Anton Walbrook)and his beautiful but highly nervous wife Bella (Diana Wynyard).Bella according to her husband is a thief who takes his things and claims not to remember doing so(kleptomania)however we soon discover Paul is the one taking the items,with the intention of driving Bella mad.Bella has one supporter in all of this a former policeman(who worked on the case of the murder at the house)B.G Rough(Frank Pettingell)who suspects Paul to be the nephew and possible killer of the old woman.Can he save Bella and unmask the killer in time? Well if your curiosity has been piqued then you should seek this out and see for yourself.While Diana is brilliant as the fragile and terrified Bella the acting plaudits must go to Anton. Hovering in the corner of the frame seething with disgust and deceit he's perfect as the man who's only pleasure seems to be the torment of his wife.Cathleen Cordell makes a strong impression as the Mallen's saucy and flirtatious maid Nancy. This is a film which deserves so much more praise and attention than it has received over the years.

mhesselius This is the first film adaptation of the British stage drama "Angel Street," and in many instances it betters it's famous Hollywood counterpart. Diana Wynyard, Frank Pettingell, and Cathleen Cordell don't have the acting chops of Ingrid Bergman, Joseph Cotten, and Angela Lansbury, but Anton Walbrook's performance as the sinister Paul Mallen blows away Charles Boyer as Gregory Anton. Where Boyer comes across as an obsessed schemer trying to find the missing rubies of Alice Alquist, Walbrook is quite mad, always walking on the edge of the abyss. It's basically the same role he would play nine years later in the fine supernatural thriller "Queen of Spades," also directed by Thorold Dickinson with a surer hand. Whenever Walbrook is on screen he is fascinating to watch, and commands our attention in the way Peter Lorre often did.There are no scenes in the 1944 Hollywood remake as suspenseful as the opening of the 1940 version where an unknown assailant strangles Alice Barlow then savagely knifes the chair cushions in his search for - what? Or even at the end where Mallen's wife grips a knife with which she seems about to stab her husband. In the middle of the film, however, we must sit through some rather stiff direction and mechanical plot devices. Still MGM thought enough of this version to purchase and suppress it in advance of their own production.Unlike the slick Hollywood version that provides a gratuitous romantic interlude to showcase Boyer's and Bergman's sex-appeal, the British film doesn't need to explain why the abused wife found her husband appealing in the first place. It focuses rather on the story's Victorian milieu, in which husbands are tyrants who treat their wives as possessions like the gaudy furnishings that clutter their rooms.The one change in the Hollywood version that makes sense is the inclusion of Joseph Cotten as a romantic hero. It seems necessary if only to give him a plausible reason for taking a personal interest in Bergman's plight.