10/13/2023 0 Comments Gaslight 1940The theory underlying Mallen/Delgado’s scheme, of course, is that those rubies are still in the house somewhere, and that by taking up residence at 12 Pimlico square, he can comb the building for them at his leisure. That his new wife should turn out to be nervous, weak-willed, and easily dominated was simply the icing on the cake. Many years later, he married the richest young woman he could find, in order to use her fortune to gain access to his dead aunt’s old mansion. He- as you’d have guessed very swiftly even if I’d kept my big mouth shut- was the one who killed Alice Barlow twenty years ago, but he never did locate the jewels that motivated his crime. Mallen, you see, had always been the poor relation in his family, and he was almost psychotically resentful of his aunt’s wealth. Paul Mallen is indeed the man he knew as Louis Delgado, and he’s up to something so nefarious that Rough would scarcely believe it if somebody just flat-out told him. He asks Cobb to keep an eye on Number 12, and to discreetly pump Nancy for any information she might have about her employers. Still, Rough thinks he smells a rat, and the old habits of crime-solving evidently die hard. After all, Cobb is one of several men who are currently competing for the romantic attentions of the Mallens’ chambermaid, Nancy (Cathleen Cordell). Rough’s assistant, Cobb (Jimmy Hartley, of Satellite in the Sky and The Lost Continent), however, tells him otherwise- and he should know, too. In fact, he takes Mallen to be a man called Louis Delgado, who was the rather notorious ne’er-do-well nephew of the late Alice Barlow. Rough used to be a policeman before he got a little too old to go picking fights with felons, and he’s positive he’s seen Paul Mallen before. Rough (Frank Pettingell, from Corridors of Blood), who runs the livery stable not far from the cathedral. They do go to church, at least, and it is on their way home one Sunday morning that they catch the eye of B. The new tenants keep mostly to themselves at first, and it’s pretty clear that the reason why is that Paul fears his wife will do something to embarrass him if he takes her out in public. The couple who move into the long-abandoned house are Paul Mallen (Anton Walbrook, from the 1935 version of The Student of Prague) and his mousy and noticeably unbalanced wife, Bella (Diana Wynyard). Twenty years later, 12 Pimlico Square finally gets a new tenant- or two tenants, to be precise. The article in the next day’s morning paper which reports the crime may state that the Barlow Rubies were missing from the mansion when the police came to investigate, but something about the killer’s body language as he makes his escape tells me that it isn’t because he succeeded in absconding with them. Still thwarted, he sets about systematically ransacking the entire house, emptying cupboards, dismantling chests of drawers, and shredding every pillow, bolster, and seat cushion he can find. Barlow’s killer then frisks the dead woman’s body, but evidently he does not find what he hoped, for he soon dumps her onto the floor and slits open the upholstery of the chair in which she had been sitting. Late one night in 1865, a man breaks into the mansion at 12 Pimlico Square, and murders Alice Barlow (Marie Wright), the immeasurably wealthy old lady who leases the house. Four years before MGM, British National adapted the same story (derived from a stage play known as Angel Street on the western shore of the Atlantic) to the screen with such impressive results that the present-day obscurity of their version seems a nearly criminal injustice. That movie may indeed deserve the honors it is conventionally accorded (in fact, we’ll be turning our attention to that very question in the not-too-distant future), but what its boosters often lose sight of- and in some cases, may not be aware of at all- is that the 1944 Gaslight is a remake of an earlier and now all but forgotten film. The malignant, acquisitive scuzzbucket attempting to drive a rich lady insane for fun and profit has long been among the most popular driving forces for suspense movies, and for nearly as long, the 1944 Ingrid Bergman vehicle, Gaslight, has been considered to be the definitive example of the form. Gaslight / Angel Street / A Strange Case of Murder (1940) ****
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