![]() This DVD treats this unsung first version as an added extra, as it did with the earlier Mystery of the Wax Museum on the House of Wax disc last year. Minus the star power, it is probably the better all-round thriller. But the original English film has a lot going for it as well. The most famous is obviously the Ingrid Bergman remake with its top star cast and ritzy direction from George Cukor. Gregory’s taken into custody, and Paula’s mental health is restored.Patrick Hamilton's play Angel Street was given two very good filmic translations in the 1940s. In the confrontation, she finds the “lost” brooch squirreled away in the attic. For a moment, we wonder if she’ll succumb to her “madness” and kill him, or whether she’ll relent, free Gregory, and be killed herself. In an exciting climax, Paula confronts Gregory and he tries to manipulate her again. He convinces her she’s not going insane, and in fact she’s in great danger. One night after Gregory’s gone out composing, Brian Cameron barges past the housekeeper and insists on seeing Paula. Alquist “by someone very highly placed,” and were the reason for the murder. He considers the unsolved case and discovers that crown jewels of another country were (oddly) given to Ms. The mystery guy at the Tower turns out to be a young Scotland Yard detective, Brian Cameron (Joseph Cotten), who was also a childhood fan of Alice Alquist. Since these noises and lighting malfunctions never occur when Gregory’s home, obviously it’s all in Paula’s imagination. She hears footsteps in the boarded-up attic the gas house lights dim and brighten for no clear reason. Gregory goes out every night, apparently to his studio to compose music, leaving Paula at home in the house she fears. Now she’s got guilt as well as apparent proof of her absentmindedness. They visit the crown jewels, which Gregory ogles. Gregory suggests he’s a former beau of hers Paula says she’s never seen him. (Why not leave it at home, then? she might ask, but then the story would be over.) The couple visits the Tower of London, where they see a man who seems to know them. He gives her a brooch, a treasured family piece, but places it in her purse because the catch is too fragile to be worn just now. First, he’s all kindness, blaming her alleged lapses on fatigue. ![]() Gregory escalates the mental abuse by insisting she’s forgetful. Denied the critical sanity check provided by outside voices, Paula lives increasingly in her own mind and in the version of the truth Gregory gives her. Upon return to London, Gregory isolates Paula, first playing on her romanticism (“No visitors, dear–let’s continue our honeymoon”), then gradually by insisting to callers and the household staff madame is too ill to receive guests. Guess who happens to own such a property? Paula resists returning home, the site of her aunt’s murder, but she decides to give Gregory his dream. ![]() Paula wants to live in Paris, but Gregory longs to live in a townhouse on a London square. Guess who meets her at the station? We know right away this guy is trouble, so the suspense begins by prompting the question, Will Paula get wise before it’s too late? It’s so intense she wants a break, and runs off to Italy to think things through. Paula quits her voice training because she doesn’t have the heart for it she’s absorbed by a whirlwind romance with Gregory (Charles Boyer). Paula (Ingrid Bergman) is a young classical singer haunted by the murder of her aunt Alice Alquist, also a famous classical singer. This film (and the play by Patrick Hamilton on which it’s based) is of course the origin of the term “gaslighting,” a form of mental abuse in which the perpetrator lies baldly and remorselessly in order to cause the victim to question his or her own reality. Screenplay: John Van Druten, Walter Reisch, John Balderston.Starring: Ingrid Bergman, Charles Boyer, Joseph Cotten, Angela Lansbury. ![]()
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