Lady Alquist's house

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Movie
German title Lady Alquist's house
Original title Gaslight
Country of production United States
original language English
Publishing year 1944
length 109 minutes
Age rating FSK 12
Rod
Director George Cukor
script John L. Balderston
Walter Reisch
John Van Druten
production Arthur Hornblow Jr.
for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
music Bronislaw Kaper
camera Joseph Ruttenberg
cut Ralph E. Winters
occupation
synchronization

The House of Lady Alquist is a psychological thriller by the American director George Cukor from 1944 and was produced by the MGM film studio . The film is a remake of Thorold Dickinson's British crime film Gaslight from 1940. Both films are based on Patrick Hamilton's play Gaslight (original title: Gas Light , also Angel Street ). Ingrid Bergman received the Oscar for Best Actress for her role in Lady Alquist's House .

action

In Victorian London : The famous opera singer Alice Alquist has been murdered in her house in Thornton Square. The perpetrator was not found, nor was there a plausible motive for the crime. Lady Alquist lived with her 14-year-old niece Paula , who lost her parents early. Since Paula is traumatized by the terrible incident, she is sent to Italy for a few years. There she receives singing lessons from Maestro Guardi , who had already trained her aunt. Ten years later, the young singer falls in love with the charming pianist Gregory Anton . You are getting married on short notice.

Gregory would like to live in his own house, preferably in London. For his sake Paula decides to finally take over her aunt's inheritance, which also includes the still vacant house on Thornton Square. After so many years she thinks she has overcome the past, but she is wrong and a chain of strange events soon begins. As soon as she arrives, Paula finds a letter that a certain Sergius Bauer wrote to her aunt shortly before the murder. Gregory snatches the document from her almost angrily, as it touches him painfully when his beloved wife indulges in the dark memories. To avoid this in the future, he has the whole house refurnished and the aunt's old possessions moved to the attic.

Then Gregory tries to make life in London comfortable for his wife. He visits sights like the Tower of London with her and gives her a valuable brooch, an old heirloom from his family. He is all the more disappointed when she soon loses the jewelry. In general, he says, does it happen quite often that she loses or misplaces things - or even deliberately makes them disappear? Paula is offended and unsettled because she doesn't remember any such incident. Gregory calms her down, but considers her temper to be more attacked than she herself wants to admit. In order to spare her nerves, he does not go out with her for the time being and does not receive any visitors.

But Paula also feels uncomfortable in the house, especially when Gregory leaves her alone in the evening and goes to a studio to compose there undisturbed. Then she often hears noises and steps in the attic, which is actually locked inaccessible. In addition, the old-fashioned gas light begins to flicker and burn even darker than usual. Gregory, who notices nothing of the kind, dismisses the appearances as pure imagination. Nevertheless, Paula's mood remains depressed. Her fears are incomprehensible to the deaf cook Elisabeth , and the maid Nancy is often snippy, almost scornful. This pretty and sturdy young girl seems to want to offer herself to the fun-loving landlord as a substitute for the weak and nervous wife, and Gregory can think of no better way to counter Paula's burgeoning jealousy than to flirt with the girl in a demonstrative way.

To cheer Paula up, Gregory finally grants her a visit to the theater. However, your exuberant anticipation is only granted for a few moments, then another strange incident wrecks you. A picture has disappeared from the wall - who should have taken it away if not Paula? When she protests that she has not even noticed its absence, he gruffly orders her to get it back immediately. In fact, she succeeds, but as if under hypnotic compulsion and incomprehensible to herself.

Only once more does Paula gather her dwindling self-confidence and, against Gregory's resistance, force a visit to a piano concert in the salon of her friends, the Dalroy family . There it comes to a scandal. Gregory misses his pocket watch and, as expected, finds it in Paula's handbag. Thereupon she suffers a hysterical crying fit in front of everyone. He brings her home and is now finally forced to make a revelation that completely crushes Paula: Her mother did not die when she was born, as she had always believed, but only later mentally deranged in an asylum, and she probably saw the madness they are passed on. The only company that Paula can expect in the future will therefore be doctors.

Yet another person shows interest in the unfortunate woman. Scotland Yard commissioner Brian Cameron met her by chance while visiting the tower and thought he saw the image of the singer Alquist, for whom he had raved as a teenager. From then on he deals with the unsolved murder case, although his supervisor assures him that it is "dead". At least Cameron learns from him who is that stranger who is so strikingly similar to Lady Alquist, and that there was certainly a motive for murder at the time. Alice Alquist owned some very valuable jewels that have since disappeared without a trace. They came from an admirer from the very highest circles, so the police had not disclosed anything about them out of discretion.

From now on, Cameron keeps a close eye on the Alquist house. He listens to the chatty neighbor, Mrs. Twaithe , and puts the clever patrolman Williams in trust, who does not find it difficult to hook up with the maid Nancy. It turns out that Paula has been living isolated from the outside world for a long time, while her husband regularly goes out in the evening and suddenly disappears after a few steps - apparently in an empty neighboring house.

Since Cameron also visits the Dalroy house, he witnesses Paula's nervous breakdown at the concert and decides to act. Disregarding all formalities, he penetrates Paula uninvited one evening when Gregory is out again. An old souvenir, a glove that Lady Alquist once gave to the young Cameron, gives Paula confidence and a hearing. Her heart becomes even easier when he too notices the fading of the gas light and the steps in the attic. On the spur of the moment, he searches Gregory's desk, whereupon Paula finds the ominous letter from Sergius Bauer, which Gregory had already referred to the realm of her imagination. When Cameron compares the manuscripts, one thing adds up to the other.

Gregory is none other than Sergius Bauer, the murderer of Paula's aunt, who is tied to the scene of his crime by a fatal circumstance: He could not find the coveted jewels after the murder - they must still be hidden somewhere in the house. Just to get back into the house and to be able to continue searching there, he approached Paula and finally even married her. Since then he has tried to drive her crazy with lies and deceit and thus also to usurp the rest of her legacy. His mysterious evening path leads through the neighboring house through the skylights to his own attic, where he lights a lamp and rummages through his victim's belongings again and again, hence the noises and the fading gas light in the rest of the house.

The Movie Dress That The Jewels Are On (2011)

While Cameron leaves the house to arrest the returning Gregory, the latter has finally discovered the jewels of Lady Alquist. In the midst of worthless imitations, they were sewn onto one of the many stage costumes that he had often tossed to and fro carelessly. Dropping all caution in triumph, this time he returns through his own attic door. In view of the open desk, he interrogates Paula in a rage until she confesses to him the strange visitor. But even this only seems to have sprung from their madness. In general, their behavior now shows utter confusion, so that Gregory believes he is the target of his perfidious machinations. Then Cameron is in the doorway.

A few words exchanged in cold politeness are enough to make Gregory his situation clear. After a brief scuffle, he escapes to the attic, where Cameron overpowers and ties him with the help of Williams. Paula is granted one last private conversation with her husband. He hastily begs her to cut him loose, there is a knife in the drawer, Cameron has served her nothing but lies because he is in love with her. But Paula only has angry sarcasm left for the criminal: for the sake of her happy times, she might believe him and free him - if only she wasn't crazy. But since, as he knows, she is crazy, she “loses” the saving knife in front of his eyes, looks for it here and there and cannot find it.

While Gregory is being taken away by the police, Cameron promises to come back to help Paula in her new life.

History of origin

Patrick Hamilton's play Gaslight (original title: Gas Light , also Angel Street ) premiered in 1938 and was a great success on the stages in London and New York. The first film adaptation of Gaslight was made in Great Britain in 1940, directed by Thorold Dickinson . During the filming of The House of Lady Alquist , the MGM film studio tried to acquire all copies of the 1940 version of the film and then destroyed them. The efforts were unsuccessful, however, but the British version was shown much less frequently than the US production in the decades to come.

Both Irene Dunne and Hedy Lamarr turned down the female lead in The House of Lady Alquist . Finally Ingrid Bergman was hired, who, like Joseph Cotten , was under contract with the film producer David O. Selznick at the time. Bergman's intensive efforts were almost in vain and the film was thwarted by the fee demands of her co-star. Charles Boyer was charging a very high fee at the time and wanted to be named first in the opening credits. When producer Selznick heard about it, he refused to loan his actress to the rival film studio MGM. It was only after Bergman, who was very interested in working with Charles Boyer and director George Cukor , that David O. Selznick gave his consent, but was mentioned in the opening credits for this loan.

In order to appear as authentic as possible in the film , Ingrid Bergman spent some time researching her role in a mental hospital . There she studied a woman who had suffered a nervous breakdown. Ingrid Bergman and Charles Boyer met for the first time on the day of the train station scene, in which their film characters kiss passionately. Since Boyer was three centimeters shorter than Bergman at 1.75 meters tall, he had to stand on a box to look taller next to his female co-star. Bergman accidentally kicked this box aside while the scene was being shot.

In the script of the MGM film studio, it was planned that Boyer should show his film partner in the final scene his everlasting love. These subsequently inserted lines of text were based on the idea of ​​a screenwriter and were not included in Patrick Hamilton's play. When film producer David O. Selznick, to whom lead actress Ingrid Bergman was under contract, read the script, he was horrified and sent MGM one of his notorious emphatic memos in which he ordered the studio to remove the line of text from the script which the MGM then did.

useful information

  • The aria that Ingrid Bergman sings at the beginning of the film comes from Gaëtano Donizetti's opera Lucia di Lammermoor . In the opera, the title character Lucia goes mad.
  • Angela Lansbury was 17 years old when she made her film debut with Lady Alquist's House . She had previously worked at the Bullocks department store in Los Angeles . When Lansbury announced the resignation to her boss, he tried to persuade her to stay and promised to adjust her salary to that of the new employer . Expecting the amount to be in the range of Bullocks' wages of $ 27 a week, he was utterly taken aback when Lansbury informed her boss of her future weekly earnings of $ 500.
  • The sets in the film were overflowing with lots of Victorian knick- knacks, to illustrate Paula's growing claustrophobic mania.
  • The term gaslighting is derived from the film title , initially in the United States as an active word for the application of Gregory's methods, i.e. lying, deceiving, psychological manipulation, now also in German as a technical term in psychology and similarly in political discussion. The 45th President Donald Trump in particular is accused of gaslighting by his critics.

Reviews

  • “ An unbroken, exciting psycho thriller, set in the Victorian era, excellently staged and performed. "( Lexicon of International Films )
  • " Dark Hollywood thriller about a young couple who are plagued by eerie incidents after moving into the house of a deceased aunt " (DVD & Video Report)
  • “ An all-round successful thriller with brilliant actors, virtuoso camera work and skillfully used music. "(VideoWeek)
  • “ At the time, the responsible studio MGM was not least known for its glamorous high quality handling of production values ​​such as equipment, costumes and backdrops. The film impressively redirects this skill into the staging of a Victorian England that feels as magnificent as it is socially repressive. "(Critic.de)
  • “ Cukor created a criminal chamber play with strong atmospheric moments - in contrast to the underlying play" Gaslicht ", which was more like a ripper. Ingrid Bergman received an Oscar in 1944 for the role of Paula, who desperately clings to her sanity. Charles Boyer, who was also nominated for an Oscar, skilfully alludes to his image as the slick villain Gregory. "( Prism )
  • “ A crime film that contains many good psychological details and remains close to what is convincingly human. "( Protestant film observer )

Awards

The film Das Haus der Lady Alquist , which was nominated for seven Oscars at the Academy Award ceremony in 1945 , brought the Swedish- born Ingrid Bergman in particular the desired success in Hollywood . Bergman, who was not accepted by everyone in the dream factory due to her natural appearance (" She has a nose that is way too big, crooked teeth and impossible eyebrows, " interview by David O. Selznick), won with her portrait of a woman who apparently slowly going mad, the Golden Globe and their first of three Oscars. The native French Charles Boyer as a domineering and mysterious husband and the then seventeen-year-old Angela Lansbury, who made her feature film debut with The House of Lady Alquist , were nominated for the Oscar . Another Oscar was awarded for the best interior design in black and white that could realistically capture the Victorian era.

Oscar 1945

Nominated in the categories

Golden Globe 1945

  • Best Actress (Ingrid Bergman)

National Film Registry

  • Recording 2019

synchronization

The film was dubbed in 1947 at the Motion Picture Export Association . Kurt Hoffmann was responsible for the dialogue script and the dubbing .

role actor Dubbing voice
Paula Alquist-Anton Ingrid Bergman Eva Vaitl
Gregory Anton Charles Boyer Peter Pasetti
Brian Cameron Joseph Cotten Ernst Schlott
Maid Nancy Angela Lansbury Marianne Stanior
Miss Bessie Thwaites Lady May Whitty Margarete Haagen
Elizabeth, the cook Barbara Everest Edith Schultze-Westrum
Policeman Williams Tom Stevenson Wolfgang Preiss
Lord Dalroy (Lady Dalroy's husband) Lawrence Grossmith Eduard Wandrey
Museum guide in the Tower of London Leonard Carey Bruno Huebner

Remake

In 2000, rumors increased that the American film studio Revolution was planning a remake of Lady Alquist's House . The work, entitled Project 3 , should take place in New York and also deal with a woman who is systematically driven to madness by her husband. Julia Roberts was to be the leading actress , for the direction of the American Gore Verbinski . Matt Damon and Ben Affleck , later Aaron Eckhart, were in discussion for the male lead .

Under the title Butterfly , the production with a script by JH Wyman and Barbara Benedict was supposed to start on April 1st, 2001, but leading actress Julia Roberts dropped out of the project because she is said to have been dissatisfied with the script. In November 2001, US media reported that the script should be revised, but the project - supported by the Columbia Pictures film studio, among others - came to nothing.

In January 2006 media reported that British director Joe Wright ( Pride and Prejudice ) had been won over to remake The House of Lady Alquist . Paula Weinstein ( The Monster-in-Law ) was supposed to be responsible as executive producer for the Warner Bros. film studio , while the screenwriter and playwright Abi Morgan was supposed to write the script. But this project also failed.

DVD release

  • Lady Alquist's house . Warner Home Video 2004

literature

  • Patrick Hamilton : Gaslight (Original title: Gaslight ). In: crime pieces . Edited and with an afterword by Jochen Ziller . Henschel, Berlin 1987, 438 pages, ISBN 3-362-00005-3
  • Patrick Hamilton: gas light; Game in 3 acts. Kiepenheuer, 1947
  • Patrick Hamilton: Gaslight: Victorian Thriller: Play in 3 Acts (2 Males, 3 Females). Constable and Company Ltd., London 1975, ISBN 0-09-450830-5 , (English edition)

Web links

Commons : Gaslight (1944 film)  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Gaslight - Articles at Turner Classic Movies
  2. ↑ Gaslight - Notes at Turner Classic Movies
  3. ↑ a b IMDb Trivia
  4. ↑ Spiegel.de: "In the mirror cabinet of lies"
  5. ↑ washingtonpost.com: "What we talk about when we talk about Donald Trump and 'gaslighting'" - `Gaslight '" is also the origin of a buzzword that has spread from pop culture to clinical psychology and back again - but has never been more visible than it is now, in commentary about the conduct of President Trump "
  6. ↑ Claudia Weiler, Stephanie Sarkis: "Gaslighting": Dangerous manipulation. heute.de , February 2, 2017, archived from the original on February 3, 2017 ; accessed on January 13, 2018 .
  7. ↑ The House of Lady Alquist. In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed September 1, 2019 .Template: LdiF / Maintenance / Access used 
  8. ↑ Short review on critic.de
  9. ↑ Lady Alquist's house at Prisma
  10. ↑ Evangelischer Presseverband München, Review No. 205/1952
  11. ↑ Lady Alquist's house in the synchronous database
  12. ↑ The House of Lady Alquist. In: synchronkartei.de. German synchronous file , accessed on August 1, 2019 .