Double Feature

Diabolique

Before Psycho, Peeping Tom, and Repulsion, there was Diabolique. This thriller from Henri‑Georges Clouzot, which shocked audiences in Europe and the U.S., is the story of two women – the fragile wife and the willful mistress of the sadistic headmaster of a boys’ boarding school – who hatch a daring revenge plot. With its unprecedented narrative twists and terrifying images, Diabolique is a heart-grabbing benchmark in horror filmmaking, featuring outstanding performances by Simone Signoret, Véra Clouzot, and Paul Meurisse. (Janus Films)

Gaslight

For her stellar performance in George Cukor’s taut psychological thriller Gaslight, Ingrid Bergman won the first of her three Academy Awards, playing a bride whose sanity starts to crumble after moving with her mysterious new husband (Charles Boyer) into the isolated estate where her aunt was murdered. But is she really going mad or is there something more terrifyingly evil afoot? With Joseph Cotten as a Scotland Yard investigator and a young Angela Lansbury in her debut role.

“With Mr. Boyer doing the driving in his best dead-pan hypnotic style, while the flames flicker strangely in the gas-jets and the mood music bongs with heavy threats, it is no wonder that Miss Bergman goes to pieces in a most distressing way. Both of these popular performers play their roles right to the hilt. Nice little personality vignettes are interestingly contributed, too, by Joseph Cotten as a stubborn detective, Dame May Whitty and Angela Lansbury as a maid.” – Bosley Crowther, The New York Times