![]() ![]() His footsteps in the supposedly empty apartment persuade Bella that she is "hearing things". Jack goes to the flat each night to search for the jewels, and lighting the apartment's gas lights causes the lights to dim in the rest of the building. Rough explains that the apartment above was once occupied by one Alice Barlow, a wealthy woman who was murdered for her jewels. The appearance of a police detective called Rough leads Bella to realise that Jack is responsible for her torment. It becomes clear that Jack is intent on convincing Bella that she is going insane, even to the point of assuring her she is imagining that the gas light in the house is dimming. What most perturbs Bella is Jack's unexplained disappearances from the house: he will not tell her where he is going, and this increases her anxiety. It is late afternoon, a time that Hamilton notes as the time "before the feeble dawn of gaslight and tea."īella is clearly on edge, and the stern reproaches of her overbearing husband (who flirts with the servants in front of his wife) make matters worse. The play is set in fog-bound London in 1880, at the upper middle class home of Jack Manningham and his wife Bella. In 2019, the film was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant". The 1944 American version received seven nominations at the 17th Academy Awards, including Best Picture, and won two, Best Actress (for Ingrid Bergman) and Best Production Design. ![]() Both films are considered classics in their respective countries of origin, and are generally equally critically acclaimed. The play was adapted to the big screen as two films, both entitled Gaslight-a 1940 British film, and a 1944 American film directed by George Cukor, also known as The Murder in Thornton Square in the UK. ![]() Angel Street was a hit in its Broadway premiere, and it remains one of the longest-running non-musicals in Broadway history, with 1,295 total performances. Premiering at the Richmond Theatre in London on 5 December 1938 before transferring to the Apollo Theatre in the West End on 1 January, the play closed after six months and 141 performances, but it has endured through an impressive list of incarnations most notably Five Chelsea Lane (1941 American play – renamed for Los Angeles production), Angel Street (1941 American play – renamed again when Los Angeles production transferred to Broadway), and Gaslight (1958 Australian television play). Two years later, Hamilton's mother committed suicide. Six years prior to the play Hamilton was hit by a drunk driver and dragged through the streets of London, leaving him with a limp, a paralysed arm, and a disfigured face. Gas Light was written during a dark period in Hamilton's life. Hamilton's play is a dark tale of a marriage based on deceit and trickery, and a husband committed to driving his wife insane in order to steal from her. Gas Light is a 1938 thriller play, set in 1880s London, written by the British novelist and playwright Patrick Hamilton. On Angel Street, in the Pimlico district of London, 1880 ![]()
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