Gaslight (1944)

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General		Extras
Category	Thriller	Main Menu Audio Featurette-Reflections on Gaslight (13:50) Featurette-Oscars For Movie Stars (1:31) Theatrical Trailer-1.33:1, not 16x9 enhanced, Dolby Digital 2.0 (1:50)
Rating
Year Of Production	1944
Running Time	109:07
RSDL / Flipper	RSDL (58:31)	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Menu
Region Coding	2,4,5	Directed By	George Cukor
Studio Distributor	Warner Home Video	Starring	Charles Boyer Ingrid Bergman Joseph Cotten Dame May Whitty Angela Lansbury Barbara Everest
Case	Amaray-Transparent-Secure Clip
RPI	$19.95	Music	Bronislau Kaper

    The second DVD from the new Screen Legends series from Warner Home Video through my player for review is another of those films that I was introduced to by my father. It has to be said, however, that it is a film that I am far less familiar with than the previously reviewed Mrs. Miniver or indeed the ilk of Goodbye Mr Chips, for which I could, if pushed, probably recite the dialogue.

    The location is fashionable Thornton Square in London, home of some of the upper crust of London. Rather annoyingly, there has been a murder at number 9. Details are sketchy but the victim is apparently a singer of repute, one Alice Alquist, and she has been strangled. She was discovered by her niece Paula Alquist (Ingrid Bergman). The distraught niece is whisked away from the house by concerned friends and shunted off to Italy where she will study singing under the same maestro who taught her aunt. The teaching is not going especially well as Paula is not her aunt, plus she has against her expectations found love in the form of a dashing composer, Gregory Anton (Charles Boyer). With his pupil distracted as a result, the maestro agrees to her giving up the study and so Paula heads to Lake Como for a break. On the train there she briefly meets one Miss Thwaites (Dame May Whitty) from London. The chit-chat brings back to Paula the problems that she has left behind in London, and the house that is now boarded up and to which she has not returned since leaving London. The unexpected presence of Gregory in Lake Como brightens the mood. Marriage is on the cards.

    Everything seems so wonderful and Paula even agrees to return to London, after Gregory hints it, and resume occupancy of 9 Thornton Square. No guessing whom one of her neighbours happens to be. The return is not easy but Gregory seems to be doing all he can to make it a little easier for her by having all her aunt's belongings locked up in the attic and foregoing his work to be with her. He even hires servants - Elizabeth Tompkins (Barbara Everest), the cook and Nancy Oliver (Angela Lansbury), the chambermaid - to look after the house. But the seemingly idyllic existence is slowly interfered with due to Paula's apparent failing mental health. She starts to lose things, begins to forget things and hears strange noises in the house. As she desperately tries to cling to the world slowly devolving around her, one of Scotland Yard's brightest, Brian Cameron (Joseph Cotten), rekindles an interest in the long unsolved murder of her aunt.

    Lack of familiarity certainly works well with the film, as what we have is a very well crafted screenplay that bears comparison with some of Alfred Hitchcock's finest with ease. Indeed, the latter part of the film with Gregory really pushing for the incarceration of Paula could have graced the finest of Hitchcock's films with no trouble whatsoever. It comes as no surprise that the screenplay was nominated for an Oscar in 1945. But beyond the great screenplay is a great director at work with a superb cast.

    The result is a film that in all was nominated for seven Oscars in 1945. It only won two - Best Actress for Ingrid Bergman and Best Art Direction, Interior Design - but that hardly matters at all, for the film has certainly ascended to the stature of a classic. It does not matter at what you might cast your attention, it bears scrutiny to the highest level. That scrutiny however does not reveal the true classic nature of the film: that is only achieved by simple viewing. If you are totally unfamiliar with the film, then I really envy you the first viewing of the film, for it is surely one that will have you transfixed upon the screen. However, if you have seen the film before, even returning to it on a regular basis the film still draws you in and maintains a beguiling grip upon you. I had not seen the film for maybe five years prior to the review session, but sitting back and watching soon had me transfixed with the way the story unfolds.

    This is in no small amount due to the utterly superb performance of Ingrid Bergman, for which she deservingly won the first of her three Oscars. Whilst she might have been a little over the top by modern standards, although few actresses today would be capable of the performance she gave, it is just a wonderfully believable effort in nearly all respects. And nearly all of it comes from the eyes. She was certainly an absolutely gorgeous woman but that was irrelevant here - just about everything of any importance emanates from those beguiling eyes. The story is well known that she was desperate to do the film with Charles Boyer (the George Clooney of his day I suppose - although a vastly better actor), not caring what billing she got as Charles Boyer insisted upon top-billing. When you see the film, you realise that she was absolutely right to hang out for the film. Whilst her performance is quite superb, the way she rubs off the equally adept performance of Charles Boyer simply adds the finishing touch to the film. He was nominated for an Oscar for his performance. Joseph Cotten produces a suitably supportive role for what really is a small, but hugely important, role. Certainly not in the same league as the two leads, but nonetheless still rather impressive.

    The supporting cast is no less in quality either, leading off with a very young Angela Lansbury in her first film role. Most people know her best for the series Murder She Wrote, and if that is the only place you know her from then rest assured that this is a very different young woman altogether. She too copped an Oscar nomination for this film (one of three she has earned). The incomparable Dame May Whitty makes another indelible mark upon a film of the Second World War period (she seemed to be in them all even though she actually made "only" seventeen films in the six years), playing the sort of role that she did so well. Barbara Everest rounds out the main cast members, by no means last and least important. With this sort of quality in the cast, is it hardly surprising that George Cukor made such a great film? It might not be the very best he did (take your pick of My Fair Lady, The Philadelphia Story, Little Women, A Star Is Born or even the uncredited Gone With The Wind - and you wonder why he had a reputation for being a lady's director?), but it is not that far behind at all.

    Given that the film was shot entirely on a sound stage, perhaps the cinematography should also be given a special mention - you would be hard pressed to know that this at-times very atmospheric film had no location shooting at all.

    There really is not much here that does not reek of quality and the elevation of the film to classic status would have been easy enough in all respects. The banner of Screen Legend hangs with ease on the front cover of the DVD slick. Whilst a perfect world would have seen a slightly better transfer, and definitely an extras package the equivalent of the Region 1 release, if you cannot source the Region 1 release this will suffice as a more than adequate substitute.

Video

    Once again what we have in the transfer department is actually better than expected and certainly much more than I was expecting when recalling an old tape that I remember seeing a few years back.

    The transfer is presented in an aspect ratio of 1.33:1, which equates very closely to the original theatrical ratio of 1.37:1. It is of course not 16x9 enhanced.

    The way the film was shot - atmospheric is the description that might get a little overused here - meant that there is an inherent, albeit occasional, softness in the film at times. This is not just confined to the obligatory soft focus used when close ups of Ingrid Bergman were required, but having never seen the film theatrically it is difficult to know whether the occasional softness is the way the film is supposed to look. However, most of the time the transfer has a decent sharpness to it and brings up all the amazing plethora of "stuff" to be seen in the house. There is a smattering of grain in the transfer that only on occasions (such as at 65:50) becomes a little more noticeable. Shadow detail is pretty good. There is no low level noise to worry about.

    The black and white tones are handled reasonably well but at times there is a little muddying of the grey tones at times. There is never anything really terrific in the quality and depth of the blacks, but most of the time there is rarely any issue raised by it.

    There is some slight loss in resolution at times during the transfer but I would suspect that this is inherent in the source material and not the result of MPEG artefacting. There is some light aliasing in the transfer, such as in the opening credits, but this never is much of an issue at all. The cross colouration to be found around 39:52 in the jacket is a bit more obvious and difficult to ignore. The source print used for the transfer is not too shabby although bears evidence of the fact that this is an unrestored film: whilst the film artefacts are not really disruptive, there are enough specks and light scratches floating around that you would find it hard to miss them.

    This is an RSDL formatted DVD, with the layer change coming at 58:31. Once again this is virtually impossible to note during playback on my system.

    There are nine subtitle options on the DVD. Once again it is disappointing that the English efforts seem to reflect American spellings (notably an instance of theater), but otherwise there is little to complain about.

Video Ratings Summary

Sharpness
Shadow Detail
Colour
Grain/Pixelization
Film-To-Video Artefacts
Film Artefacts
Overall

Audio

    There are three soundtracks on the DVD, being Dolby Digital 1.0 soundtracks with the language options being English, French and Italian. Interestingly, these are different choices to those offered on Mrs. Miniver and Goodbye, Mr Chips, something I always find mildly amusing when a "series" is offered on DVD.

    The dialogue generally comes up quite well in the soundtrack, although it has to be borne in mind that much of the dialogue in the latter part of the film can be a little soft (almost like asides). There did not appear to be any issue with audio sync.

    The original music comes from Bronislau Kaper, a name I was not immediately familiar with but whose filmography runs to over 140 films. I can't say that too many films on that filmography are immediately recognised, which is perhaps a good way of describing the music score here. It is certainly not the most distinctive effort I have ever heard but it seems to work within the context of the film.

    Given that the source material used for remastering was probably not in terribly good condition, what we have here is about as good as we can possibly expect. The mono sound is decent enough, thankfully not strident, without any really significant problems. On occasions there is just a little hiss to be heard, especially if you turn the volume up a little, and just the odd hint of some damage in the source material that could not be repaired. Overall though, this is nothing that bad.

Audio Ratings Summary

Dialogue
Audio Sync
Clicks/Pops/Dropouts
Surround Channel Use
Subwoofer
Overall

    Until you see what is on the Region 1 release of the film, you would be tempted to suggest that at least an effort has been made as far as an extras package is concerned. Well, an effort has been made I guess - just not a real good one.

Menu

    Fairish with some modest audio enhancement.

Featurette - Reflections On Gaslight (13:50)

    This is a rather too brief look back at the film, mainly from Pia Lindstrom but also from Angela Lansbury. For those that don't know, film historian Pia Lindstrom is the daughter of Ingrid Bergman so her insights are not without some intimate knowledge. In this case the contributions of Angela Lansbury are somewhat more interesting. The presentation is in an aspect ratio of 1.33:1 that is not 16x9 enhanced and with Dolby Digital 2.0 sound. The source material is very decent but unfortunately its transition to the digital domain has seen the introduction of some aliasing and moiré artefacting. There are English, Italian, Dutch and French selectable subtitles.

Featurette - Oscars For Movie Stars (1:31)

    A rather brief piece that shows the presentation of the Best Actor (Bing Crosby) and Best Actress (Ingrid Bergman) Oscars for 1945, as well as an Oscarette for Best Child Actor Margaret O'Brien. The rather spartan and austere style again makes one long for the days of old rather than the over-bloated spectacle we have to endure nowadays. The presentation is again obviously in an aspect ratio of 1.33:1 that is not 16x9 enhanced and with some slightly ropey Dolby Digital 2.0 sound. Well, okay - a fair bit ropey, given that there is quite noticeable hiss amongst other issues, albeit nothing more than would be expected in the sort of material from all those years ago. There are English, Italian, Dutch and French selectable subtitles.

Theatrical Trailer (1:50)

    Not the best looking effort you will have ever seen: some obvious evidence of film damage, plenty of film artefacts (mainly of the dirt and scratch variety) and rather diffuse in the grey scales. Still, it is something rather than nothing and the problems are not that bad that they cannot be ignored almost completely. Obviously it is presented in the same way as the previous featurettes, although this time there appears to be no subtitles.

    This DVD is region coded for Regions 2, 4 and 5 so I am again presuming that it is the same DVD that I saw available for sale in the United Kingdom recently - although that Region 2 release also comes in a snapper case. The Region 1 release seems to be virtually identical in all respects to the Region 4 release other than language and subtitle options - barring one. That one respect is what consigns the Region 4 release to a very, very distant last place - the 1940 version of the film is included in its entirety for comparison purposes. That we even have the 1940 version of the film is quite amazing, let alone have it for comparison on the same DVD, given the trouble MGM went to in order to acquire the film and then try to destroy it for all time. The 1940 version is a British film and whilst I have never seen it, just about every comment I have seen regarding it is very positive. So basically no matter what the price advantage the Region 4 DVD might hold, there is no way that it can be preferred to the Region 1 release.

    Over the course of her career, Ingrid Bergman made some terrific films - Casablanca, Spellbound, Notorious, The Bells Of St Mary's and Anastasia amongst them. Interestingly only one of those films gave her a Best Actress Oscar (Anastasia - her other Oscar being Best Supporting Actress for Murder On The Orient Express), and it does ignore her European output such as Höstsonaten. Gaslight certainly ranks up there with the films named and is well worth investigating. The transfer is somewhat better than I was anticipating but the extras package is rather disappointing. If you can, check out the Region 1 release but otherwise the Region 4 is more than acceptable in all other respects.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall