Dir: Thorold Dickinson | Cast: Anton Walbrook, Diana Wyngard, Frank Pettingell | UK thriller
Reviewed by Richard Chatten
Although long overlooked in favour of MGM’s lavish Hollywood version Thorold Dickinson’s earlier British version is now recognised as superior of the two.
Anton Walbrook is the sanctimoniously bullying husband makes absolutely no attempt to ingratiate himself. He plays the new occupant of a house in Pimlico where, twenty years previously, Alice Barlow was murdered for her jewels and he clearly has a secret to hide giving the film its dramatic twist while Diana Wynyard, as the wife, has a fragile vulnerability quite beyond Ingrid Bergman in the remake.
Now in common parlance, the term ‘gaslighting’ originated with Patrick Hamilton’s 1929 play; subsequently filmed twice.
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