Gregory tries to dissuade her, saying she’s ill-he even writes a note to the Dalroys, begging off. She denies having taken down the picture, but soon after, pulls it out from the staircase landing and hands it to Gregory.Īs if that’s not bad enough, a while later, Paula insists on going to a musical performance at the house of Lord and Lady Dalroy. One day, a picture disappears from their drawing room, and when the two servants disclaim all knowledge, Gregory turns to Paula. Nobody else appears to notice any of this. Gregory goes off every evening to practise his music in a studio down the road and while he’s gone, the gaslight dims (as if someone had turned on a light somewhere else in the house-although Elizabeth and Nancy deny it), and then Paula hears weird sounds, footsteps, and the like. Paula is shut inside the house all day, with only the increasingly insolent Nancy for company. In the meantime, strange things are happening at 9, Thornton Square. There were no suspects and no motive, he’s told. He is curious about Paula-she is the spitting image of Alice-and tries to find out more at the Yard, but to no avail. This is Brian Cameron (Joseph Cotten), an officer at Scotland Yard who had once been a fan of Alice’s. While at the Tower, Paula encounters a stranger, who tips his hat to her. Paula doesn’t tell Gregory at the time, but when she confesses, he accuses her of being absent-minded and confused. At the Tower, the Kohinoor (and the other Crown jewels) fascinate Gregory, before Paula suddenly discovers that the brooch is missing. Paula is ecstatic when Gregory plans a trip to the Tower of London-and presents her with a brooch just as they’re stepping out of the house. Meanwhile, their snoopy but good-hearted neighbour Bessie Thwaite (Dame May Whitty, as charmingly irritating as she was in Hitchcock’s The Lady Vanishes) wonders aloud why Mrs Anton is never to be seen out of doors. Gregory tells Nancy that she’s to take her orders only from him, because Paula is “inclined to be highly-strung”.Īs the days pass, Gregory, in fact, tries (successfully) to convince Paula that she isn’t well enough to go anywhere. He hires a hard-of-hearing cook, Elizabeth (Barbara Everest), and a cocky housemaid, Nancy (the 18-year old Angela Lansbury, in her debut role). Gregory also sets about finding domestic help for them. Seeing her anguish, Gregory decides that everything that reminds Paula of Alice will be locked in the attic, and it’ll be boarded up. Paula herself gets quite upset when she sees the place where, as a girl, she’d discovered Alice’s corpse. Paula begins to read out the letter to Gregory, but he snatches it away from her and is obviously quite upset. Flipping through the musical notes, Paula comes across a letter to Alice from a Sergius Bauer, begging Alice to meet him. In Thornton Square, they see the relics of the past: Alice’s portrait, depicting her as an empress in one of her popular opera roles an embroidered glove the piano and Alice’s book of music. The house at 9, Thornton Square, had been left to her by Alice, so that’s where they’ll stay. Although she’s still haunted by what happened in London, Paula loves Gregory so much, she acquiesces. Paula suggests Paris, but Gregory’s keen on London. They finally elope, and once married, discuss where they’ll stay. Paula isn’t much of a singer, and is anyway madly in love with pianist Gregory Anton (Charles Boyer). Her teenaged niece Paula (Ingrid Bergman), who used to live with Alice, is tramautised by the incident, and is being sent off to Italy to learn music from Alice’s old mentor. The film opens in 1875, in London’s fog-shrouded Thornton Square, where opera diva Alice Alquist has been strangled. That said, this is a great film, very watchable and with the beautiful Ingrid Bergman in a superb, Oscar-winning performance. The films are worlds apart (and yes, Raj Khosla fan though I am, I must acknowledge that George Cukor is better at this!) There is, however, an interesting similarity: a central character who seems to be steadily going insane. It’s a coincidence that memsaab reviewed Woh Kaun Thi? just after I’d seen Gaslight and decided to review it.
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