Crazy Ricochet

There are gaslight movies, and then there are duelling gaslight movies. 1964's Nightmare is one of Hammer's entries to the gaslight genre and is the only one, from any studio, I can think of where the perpetrator of the gaslighting becomes a victim of gaslighting in the second half.

It's such a nice concept, I wish it were a better movie. It's mainly held back by the performances of the two lead actresses, Jennie Linden and Moira Redmond. It may not even be that they're bad actresses, simply that they made, or were told to make, the wrong choices. I see it in a few other gaslight movies, like Dangerous Crossing; everyone thinks the heroine is crazy, so the actress acts crazy. The key to a good gaslight victim performance is to make her reactions reasonable from her point of view yet plausibly extreme for anyone not sharing her experience. Linden and Redmond both go from 0 to 60 in a flash. Linden's reaction to a phantasmal figure in the night is to suddenly scream like a banshee. Redmond rages like a Saturday morning cartoon villain.

According to Wikipedia, Julie Christie was initially cast to play Linden's character. I can only imagine that would be a hell of a lot better. Though I suspect it would have meant that the whole film would have focused on her character instead of retaining its one interesting feature, the revenge gaslight aspect.

Freddie Francis directs in black and white so of course the film is visually magnificent, a splendid study of light and shadow. Most of the first half has no men. Although I'm glad we seem to have gotten past the "Bechdel Test" mania, it is a nice change of pace, particularly in a movie from this period, to have all the characters be women, especially since I really like women. Janet, Linden's character, goes home to her enormous spooky mansion after a stay in the sanatorium. Maybe she's not cured because she starts seeing a strange woman with a nightgown and facial scar, often accompanied by a creepy puppet that's never explained, and sometimes appearing to have been stabbed to death. The Janet screams hysterically and Grace (Redmond) swoops in to save her. The second half of the film brings in a male character, Henry Baxter (David Knight), who likes kissing Janet even though he's married. But that's just the beginning of his greed.

I've watched this movie a few times now so I must enjoy it. It's mainly the house, you know I'm a sucker for movies about people trapped in haunted houses, which this kind of is. I certainly wouldn't mind inheriting a sprawling manor. In case anyone has one they want to get rid of, with or without ghosts.

There are multiple uploads of this movie on YouTube. I guess it's public domain. That's refreshing, given what a pain in the ass it usually is to get ahold of a Hammer movie.