Based on Patrick Hamilton's celebrated stage play, Thorold Dickinson's (The Queen of Spades, The Next of Kin) Gaslight is a harrowing and claustrophobic study of murder, abuse and lust in Victorian London. By turns charming and cruel, Anton Walbrook (The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp) excels as the sadistic husband who attempts to drive his wife (Diana Mynyard) mad to prevent her from disclosing his dark past. This release is one of the great British psychological thrillers is accompanied by a number of Dickinson's short documentary films.
Special features
- Spanish A B C (Thorold Dickinson and Sidney Cole, 1938, 20 mins): short film on the Republican efforts to improve education standards during the Spanish Civil War
- Behind the Spanish Line (Sidney Cole and Thorold Dickinson, 1938, 20 mins): companion piece to Spanish A B C which looks at life in the Republican zone
- Westward Ho! (Thorold Dickinson, 1940, 9 mins): short film to promote the evacuation of urban children to rural areas
- Miss Grant Goes to the Door (Brian Desmond Hurst, 1940, 7 mins): short film about a German invasion from a story by Dickinson
- Yesterday is Over Your Shoulder (Thorold Dickinson, 1940, 9 mins): short film encouraging unskilled workers to join free, government-organised training schemes
- Original promotional materials and documents from the BFI National Archive (downloadable PDF)
UK | 1940 | black and white | English language, with optional hard-of-hearing subtitles | 81 minutes | original aspect ratio 1.33:1 | DVD9 | PAL | Dolby Digital audio (320kbps) | Cert: PG (contains mild violence and psychological threat) | region 2