Gaslight

Paula, an opera singer, moves into the London house she inherited from her aunt with her husband Gregory. Soon there are lapses of memory, objects that disappear and footsteps nobody else hears. Gregory keeps telling her she is losing her mind. George Cukor directed, from Patrick Hamilton's 1938 play Gas Light. Charles Boyer plays Gregory, Ingrid Bergman plays Paula and Joseph Cotten plays Inspector Cameron. It is Angela Lansbury's first film. The solution is this: Gregory is actually Sergis Bauer, the man who murdered Paula's aunt years earlier. His aim is to have her committed so he can reach the jewels hidden in the house. MGM released it on 4 May 1944. Bergman won the Academy Award for Best Actress and the film took seven nominations in total. A clause in MGM's acquisition caused an argument: it demanded the destruction of prints of the 1940 British version. Copies survived anyway. The American film was released in Britain as The Murder in Thornton Square to avoid confusion. The title produced a word. Gaslighting, meaning to make someone doubt their own mind and perception, comes from here. It entered the National Film Registry in 2019 and Rotten Tomatoes sits at 94 percent. Who it is for: viewers who like classic psychological thrillers and want to watch Bergman. Who it is not for: anyone with no patience for manipulation shown at length. The first hour is deliberately suffocating.