How Fragile Was a Romance Image?

Boyer Takes a Brave Gaslight Plunge

Laughs On The Set --- Not In The Movie!

Watching Gaslight and began to wonder if Charles Boyer took a penalty for being so awful to Ingrid Bergman. He’s a worse monster than even Rathbones and Vincent Prices you expect to victimize wives. Anyone would figure a woman assumes risk for marrying either of these, a Love From A Stranger or Dragonwyck good as announcing Ann Harding or Gene Tierney’s mis-move from moment they meet too-clearly bad men Rathbone/Price. Type-casting was Hollywood mantra, 1944 Boyer long settled as intense romantic. So far as I know, he had not so far abused his women on screen (exception: pushed to murder of shrew wife Barbara O’Neil in All This and Heaven Too). I bet Gaslight was a shock to Boyer’s following, for never had he, or any male star, whose image was based on femme appeal, been so icy cruel. “Gregory Anton” kills in Gaslight’s back story, then manipulates “Paula Alquist” (Bergman) toward bughouse confine so he can locate jewels hid since his murder of her aunt. I think Boyer was brave for taking this 100% unsympathetic part. Had others turned it down? He was freelance and so chose, was not coerced, into being Anton. Of Metro contract group, who could/would have done it? Close candidate might be Robert Montgomery, evil in Night Must Fall and A Rage in Heaven, but he was war serving when Gaslight was made. Did women trust Boyer again after seeing him as Anton? I say this because he is that good in Gaslight. A fun watch not only for Boyer, but Joseph Cotton, lethal himself in year before’s Shadow Of A Doubt. Did servicemen seeing Gaslight in jungles and 16mm field set-ups fear for girls back home with an Anton or Uncle Charlie loose to prey upon innocence?

Directing George Cukor Trimmer Than I Recall Seeing Him Elsewhere

I checked Boyer’s post-Gaslight filmography. He was 45 in 1944, not too old to go on being a love object, but in what? There was Confidential Agent, made, I assume, before Gaslight’s impact was felt (release was delayed), also Together Again, a comedy reunion with Irene Dunne, another likely overlap. After that, there are only three more 40's star parts for Boyer, one a disaster (w/Bergman again), Arch Of Triumph, before that A Woman’s Vengeance and Cluny Brown. Latter was fun, better thought of today than then. Vengeance was maybe what women, at least the one in this movie, wanted to see visited on Boyer after the way he Gaslight-comported. Boyer by the 50’s, and in his fifties, was a character actor, no shame there, and he was fine as always, but might the lover lead thing have prematurely quit for his being so disturbingly credible in Gaslight? One woman scorned was/is bad enough … consider millions of them done so by a dream man they had trusted implicitly. And don’t ignore male angle for cooling toward screen women: Bette Davis striding cross screen and bang-banging for opening scene of The Letter, then killing again where it suited her in later vehicles (men always the target). Crawford and Stanwyck the same. Stanwyck shot guys like skeet. Most men shun the three … for good reason? I boy-remember watching Stanwyck push Anthony Quinn into pumping works of an oil derrick (Blowing Wild), and thinking, “Does she do this in all her pictures?” It needed age and maturity before I could enjoy her (the others too) unreservedly.

Laughs Precede Intense Tie-Up Scene as Supervised By Cukor

Most stars, those protective of benign images, figured they could get away with scary departure … once. Gene Tierney did Leave Her To Heaven, then put such conduct behind her. Ronald Colman said he wouldn’t do Rebecca because onscreen wife murder could never be his thing (this at undoubted point before story change took Maxim off the homicide hook). They say censors wouldn’t let Hitchcock have the Suspicion end he wanted (Cary Grant kills Joan Fontaine), but given the liberty, would Grant have been willing to play it? I bet not. Fred MacMurray did murder in Double Indemnity, but he was single and a “wolf” besides, so maybe deserved Stanwyck for the very bad influence she was. Bogart did in a wife for Conflict openers, but he was Bogart, so here was behavior not unexpected. Was Boyer as Anton the most seemingly ideal husband to turn out to be a cad and killer? If so, then I regard Gaslight as historic, Boyer perhaps paying dear for doing it. Being Metro means Gaslight looks like an overstocked furniture mart, even where it was the idea for Paula/Bergman to be suffocated by décor. There is Hitchcock influence. You could mistake this as one of his were Gaslight less contrived. Anton tips off his villainy (clumsily, I’d add) by steaming up over a letter Paula comes across, this early enough in the show for us to know he’s a threat. Sort of like Uncle Charlie making a fuss over torn newspaper and the inscribed ring. The lengths writers and directors had to go to for heroines, and us, to get suspicious.

Bergman was tall and more than robust, taller, in fact, than Boyer. He’s in man-heels on their honeymoon, and for all I know, stood on platforms later in close shots. Bette Davis spoke of shock seeing him as genuine article as opposed to idol image: hair gone, a paunch, the usual disillusionment where one expects a perfect man. Still, he could make the illusion work, and we buy Bergman flipping for him. She’s a more than physical match, so it’s good they don’t come to blows (I always wondered why Bergman needed a gun in Casablanca when she could as easily wrestle those letters-of-transit away from Bogie/Bogey). One thing Hitchcock had that Gaslight needed was humor. This one is cruel and takes forever getting Paula from harm’s way. I wanted Joseph Cotten to speed up his investigation and get there sooner. Cotten by the way is sole oasis for levity, if subdued, welcome as 114 minutes crawls toward belated rescue. Cukor drops nice suspense devices, holding us off less for if Anton did it (murder), than why he did it. Gaslight in the end is less a “fun” thriller than a mean one. In addition to Boyer, there is snide maid Angela Lansbury, them a tag team to torment Bergman. Let’s just say I’ll watch Shadow of a Doubt five times for every once I’d see Gaslight. Still, it’s got pluses, and good news of late sees Warner Archive out with a Blu-Ray.