Over at Alex on Film I’ve been watching two film adaptations of the Patrick Hamilton play Gas Light: the 1940 version directed by Thorold Dickinson (which I liked the best) and the more famous 1944 film directed by George Cukor and starring Ingrid Bergman (who won an Academy Award).
The only reason I wanted to watch these movies is because the phrase “gaslighting” has become so popular in political discussions that I wanted to see where it originated. I came away thinking it’s a stretch to apply it to political propaganda and the lies presidents tell. But then, the plot of the two films (which comes from a play by Patrick Hamilton) is so ridiculous in the first place, why not?