The Smell of Death: Gaslight Through the Years

Patrick Hamilton wrote Gaslight (produced as Angel Street in America) in 1938 and it was an immediate success. Through the years it has seen many stage (and even a couple of film) productions.

Vincent Price played the malevolent husband in the 1938 Broadway production of Angel Street, pictured here.

In the first film adaptation, 1940, Anton Walbrook plays the evil husband while Diana Wynyard played the suffering wife. It was directed by Thorold Dickinson. MGM tried to get all copies of this version destroyed before releasing their version so it would have no competition, but they failed.

The most famous version, with Charles Boyer and Ingrid Bergman and directed by George Cukor. It also stars Joseph Cotten.

And the most recent stage version, from the Old Vic in 2007, it's Rosamund Pike (from Die Another Day and Joe Wright's lover girl) and Kenneth Cranham. It got great reviews from the British papers but so far, Joe Wright be damned, there are no plans to bring it back to the screen.

Cinema Still Life: Some Old B Movie

An important shot is set up for some old Warner Brothers movie. Based on the play Everybody Comes to Ricks it is re-titled... hold on let me check... Casa... Casa... oh, here it is - Casablanca. Hmmm, I wonder if it ever went anywhere. Who is that anyway? Ronald Reagan and Ann Sheridan? Nah, they'd be all wrong. You know I think it's Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman. Yeah, yeah, I'd swear that was them. I'm going have to read up on this movie. It might be pretty good.

A Birthday Tribute to Alfred Hitchcock

Today is Alfred Hitchcock's birthday. He would have 108 (born 1899) if he were still alive. Of course he is, in his movies which are timeless. A quick tribute from Cinema Styles covering the favorites, least favorites, ups, downs and everything in between.

Favorite Hitchcock Film: Notorious (1946)

Favorite Pre-Hollywood Hitchcock Film: The 39 Steps (1935)

Favorite Performance in a Hitchcock Film: Joseph Cotten in Shadow of a Doubt (1944)

Favorite Tandem Performance (that is, two actors playing off each other beautifully): Cary Grant and Ingrid Bergman in Notorious (1946)

Least Favorite Hitchcock Film: Topaz (1969)

Least Favorite Performance: John Gavin in Psycho (1960) Damn near stops the movie. Hitch referred to him on the set as "the corpse."

Most Exciting Hitchcock Film: (Tie) Foreign Correspondent (1940) and North by Northwest (1959)

Most Self-Referential (or autobiographical) Hitchcock Film: Vertigo (1958), of course.

Goofiest Hitchcock Film: (tie) Spellbound (1945) and Family Plot (1976)

Scariest Hitchcock Film: Psycho (1960)

Best use of Monuments in a Hitchcock Film: (Tie) Saboteur (1942) Statue of Liberty and North by Northwest (1959) Mount Rushmore

Best Use of Location in a Hitchcock Film: Vertigo (1958) San Francisco

Best Chase in a Hitchcock Film: Cary Grant pursued by crop duster in North by Northwest (1959)

First True "Hitchcockian" Film: Blackmail (1929)

Most "un-Hitchcockian" Film: (tie) The Farmer's Wife (1928) and Waltzes from Vienna (1934)

Best Hitchcock Comedy: Mr. & Mrs. Smith (1941)

Favorite Hitchcock Cameo: Walking with his dogs in The Birds (1963)

Most Clever Hitchcock Cameo: Seated at the table in the photograph in Dial M for Murder (1954)

Best "Children in Peril" scene in a Hitchcock Film: (tie) Strangers on a Train (1951) Merry-go-round sequence and The Birds (1963) Attack on the school scene.

Most Underrated Hitchcock Film: The Lady Vanishes (1938)

First Hitchcock Hollywood Film: Rebecca (1940)

First Hollywood-Altered Hitchcock Ending: Suspicion (1941) They just didn't want Cary to be a killer.

Best Un-Resolved "Ending" to a Hitchcock Film: The Birds (1963)

Most Clever Experiment in a Hitchcock Film: The "one-take, unbroken shot" of Rope (1948)

Best MacGuffin in a Hitchcock Film: The lighter in Strangers on a Train (1951)

Only 3-D Hitchcock Film: Dial M for Murder (1954)

Best Jimmy Stewart Hitchcock Film: Rear Window (1954)

Most Used Actor by Hitchcock: Leo Carroll in six films. I'm not counting Hitch and his multiple cameos.

and finally,

Best Use of Salvador Dali in a Dream Sequence in a Hitchcock Film about a Psychiatrist falling in love with her patient who is an innocent man wrongly accused: Spellbound (1945) I had to get that scene on the list somehow.

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