Cukor's GASLIGHT is a classic of the Gothic melodrama genre, which hit it's apex in the early-to-mid forties, starting with Hitchcock's REBECCA. Bergman won a Best Actress Oscar for her role in GASLIGHT, and she is indeed convincing as a wife terrified she is losing her sanity, in the face of the tricks of her cunning and opportune jewel-thief husband Charles Boyer (remarkably sinister yet attractive).
It's an engrossing work for the most part, with great performances by the two leads. Joseph Cotten plays the romantic rescuer of Bergman, and even if it is only a one-note role, he is still pleasing. We also get great supporting work from the likes of the inimitable Dame May Witty and saucy servant Angela Lansbury (they add a touch of English that would have been missing otherwise in this story set in the Londin fog). I did feel, however, that the film dragged in a few places and the ending was just a little too cute. Nevertheless, the atmosphere Cukor creates is very convincing, and the cinematography is appropriately shadowy and dark. The house, presumably created on the studio lot specially for the film, is a marvelous set, conveying the wealth yet emotional emptiness of Bergman's life, and meticulously decorated so it appears as a true evocation of the Victorian era.
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