Gaslight (1944) features Ingrid Bergman as Paula, a woman traumatised at childhood finding apparent happiness a decade later once she meets suave Mr Perfect Frenchman, Gregory Anton (Charles Boyer). Against her better judgement, he surreptitiously persuades her to return to her childhood home, the setting of her trauma. They shift all of the old family furniture into the attic and set up the place as their marital abode. Pretty quickly, however, Gregory adopts a controlling approach to their marriage, to a point where Paula becomes agoraphobic and increasingly neurotic and doubtful of her own sanity. Particularly as she appears to develop kleptomaniac tendencies, and starts to literally hear bumps in the night...
Riveting performances from both Bergman and Boyer grip the viewer's attention throughout, Bergman in particular presenting a character disintegrating under the non-physical abuse she is subjected to throughout - it almost becomes unbearable as we watch her break down. Gaslight is a poignant film about spousal abuse of an extreme psychological variety. Joseph Cotten also shows up as the heroic nice guy, a possible saviour for Paula as he recognises something is not quite right from a spectator's perspective. Angela Lansbury is also quite brilliant as the flirtatious, sneering - and threatening, to Paula's paranoid brain - cockney housemaid. Really though it's Bergman's portrayed fragility that grips our emotions, probably my favourite of her performances. As an aside, it must be said that the B&W film has a beautiful look throughout, capturing the oppressive house and fleetingly seen London streets in a gorgeous fashion.
Formerly released in the US on DVD (snapper case format - it's that old) as a Region 1 disc (double-sided), I recently compared it with a later pick-up, the HMV Premium Edition here in the UK, on Blu-ray. Both present the film(s) in 1.33:1 B&W of course, although the Blu-ray is from a newer scan and sharper/cleaner with improved contrast by some margin - the picture really jumps out compared to the older DVD. Audio is similar between the two discs although provided with a more robust DTS (mono) track on the Blu-ray. The Blu-ray runs about thirty seconds longer although I can't quite see why. as the end and beginning credits look identical - this may be a result of improved scanning presenting the film at accurate speed but I can't be certain. Both editions contain similar extras, the 1940 version in Standard Definition being the main one, two featurettes and a trailer. The Blu-ray does add an hour-long radio play from a similar era, however. On the plus side for the DVD, it contains more language tracks if you're not a native English speaker. Surprisingly also, the 1940 version actually looks a little better on the DVD; I can only assume during the rescaling process to HD it lost some of its sharpness. If you are particularly interested in that version the best option would be to buy the separate UK Blu-ray, available via the BFI.
Essentially a port of the US Warner Blu-ray, the HMV Premium Edition trumps it to some extent by adding a postcard set, slipcase, and a nice poster (approximately A3 size - see above). Thus, surprisingly, the best worldwide edition of this powerful classic is actually available right here in the UK for a reasonable price, thanks to HMV's ever-pleasing Premium range.
