This 1944 movie is obviously a classic and to mention "Gaslight" is to refer to one spouse who tries to drive the other insane.
The storyline is based on a 1940 British movie of the same name which was based on a British play of the 1930s. That's an important factor because the psychological/psychiatric sophistication of expert treatment personnel in that era -- or the general public's sophistication -- was pretty primitive. That makes the story plausible for THAT time; it's far less so for many of us now. People in those years did not understand where madness comes from. This movie suggests that it's easy for one person to quite deliberately drive another person mad.
I'm a retired clinical psychologist with 40 years of practice, 10 of them in state hospitals and then, for 30 years, some of my outpatient clients had been hospitalized.
It's NOT that one person could not shake the grasp on reality of another. BUT, in order to do so as in this story, the victim would have to obviously be already very shaky from the start and lacking even a moderately fair sureness of her grasp of reality. Not the type of character Bergman plays at the beginning.
That said, Boyer plays an excellent cad; Bergman plays an increasingly distraught and troubled bride; Cotten plays a handsome savior; while Lansbury plays a spicy, uppity maid. Given this script, they've given it their best and their best is very, very good.
In 1944, I doubt that the script was that predictable. Sixty years later, you can see clues dropped here and there which you absolutely know will resurface later.
My quibbles are too harsh for many. My companion (almost half my age and certainly without the psychological experience) thought it was excellent -- compelling and gripping. My occasional whispers to her that I bet that THAT clue is going to reappear didn't spoil it for her one bit.
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