Gaslight

Gaslight is a film made in 1944. The stars of the film include Charles Boyer, Ingrid Bergman, and Joseph Cotten. Gaslight could be described as many different genres, but a psycho-thriller takes the cake.  A short summary of the film:

Paula is a young woman with a sorrowful past. Her mother was an opera singer famous not only for her performance but for her jewels. When Paula was a young girl her mother was murdered for those precious jewels. Paula grew up as a struggling opera singer, always in her mother's shadow.  Paula finally emerges from that shadow when she marries the love of her life, Gregory Anton. Long story short, "Gregory Anton" is not who he says he is. Paula and Gregory's marriage is built upon her mother's jewels. In order to find and capture the famous jewels, Gregory is slowly driving Paula insane. If Paula is insane when Gregory steals the jewels, getting away with the jewels would be much easier for Gregory.

I love this movie! It's one of my favorites! Based on the plot and cast, one would normally think that this was a Hitchcock film. Surprisingly enough, it's actually a George Cukor film! I love many of Cukor's films, but none of them are even close to Gaslight. Cukor was most known as a "woman's director" because, for one, he was said to be gay, and also because most of his movies were romantic comedies of some sort. I love that Cukor made a completely different film genre than what he was known for. I like to think that Cukor was nervous about filming a new genre, sort of stepping onto Hitchcock's turf. I don't know at all if that is true or not (I should look that up), regardless Cukor ended up directing a fantastic movie that everyone should watch!

Here's a clip of Peter Bogdanovich discussing Gaslight when it featured on TCM's Essentials.