Review of Gaslight (1940)

This was a pleasant surprise. Two decades on from a grisly murder, a house is finally newly-inhabited by a sinister Anton Walbrook and his wife, Diana Wynyard, who is supposedley 'ill' but has actually been driven mad by her husband. Frank Pettingell is the pompus fellow trying to discover the motives behind the estranged Walbrook and the mysteries that took and continue to take place in the infamous house. Cathleen Cordell plays a lustful maid in a film that has plenty of sexual undertones, that must have been quite risque in 1940's Britain. Diana Wynyard is a lovely woman and it is perhaps her genuine, appealing and sympathetic nature that carries the film, wonderfully contrasting with Walbrook's character. The tinkling piano music that is played when she has her 'dreams' is very, very creepy and adds to the surreal atmosphere that is created. Pretty damn good film all round.