Screenplay: Gaslight

Overview
Gaslight (1944) is a tightly wound psychological thriller adapted for MGM by Walter Reisch and others from Patrick Hamilton's stage play. Set in Victorian-era London but filtered through 1940s Hollywood sensibilities, the screenplay centers on a young woman whose sense of reality is methodically undermined by her charismatic husband. The resulting atmosphere is claustrophobic and eerie, placing domestic life at the heart of a manipulative crime plot.
The screenplay transforms a drawing-room mystery into a character study of control, doubt, and the theatricality of deception. Reisch's adaptation emphasizes mood, pacing, and the slow accrual of small cruelties that compound into total psychological domination.

Main Characters
Paula Alquist is a timid, devoted young woman who has inherited a family home and the lingering mysteries of her aunt's death. Her vulnerability and earnestness make her an easy target for the polished predator who presents himself as a protector and spouse.
Gregory Anton is the husband whose charm masks a calculating, obsessive agenda. He systematically undermines Paula's confidence, insisting she is forgetful and emotionally unstable while manipulating the household to erase evidence of his past. Brian Cameron, a perceptive former suitor and detective, is the moral counterweight who refuses to accept the convenient explanations Gregory offers. Nancy, the housemaid, provides small acts of loyalty and a human connection that support Paula's fragile grip on reality.

Plot Summary
The story opens with Paula living quietly in her late aunt's London home. Years earlier, her aunt, a celebrated singer, was murdered, and valuable jewels disappeared. Gregory Anton marries Paula and moves into the house; outwardly attentive, he begins a campaign of subtle sabotage. He moves objects, hides items, suggests that Paula's memory is failing, and draws attention to a faint, intermittent dimming of the gas lights that only he seems to notice, and then dismiss.
As Gregory's control deepens, Paula's world shrinks: friends and confidantes are discouraged or pushed away, and every small lapse in her recall is cataloged as proof of declining sanity. Brian Cameron, who still cares for Paula, grows suspicious. He pieces together inconsistencies in Gregory's persona and timeline and becomes convinced that Gregory is linked to the old murder. Tension mounts as Brian probes, Paula wavers between trust and terror, and Gregory intensifies his campaign to discredit her.
The screenplay builds to a confrontation in which Brian exposes Gregory's true identity and criminal past, revealing the scheme behind the gaslight dimming and the deliberate isolation. The revelation rescues Paula from total despair and returns agency to her life, while the orchestrator of the torment faces the consequences of his deeds.

Themes and Style
Gaslight is less a whodunit than a study of psychological abuse and the mechanics of manipulation. The screenplay uses the domestic setting as a pressure chamber, where small technical details, the flicker of a lamp, a misplaced item, a whispered denial, become instruments of power. Reisch's dialogue and pacing favor understatement, letting dread accumulate through implication rather than spectacle.
The work foregrounds questions about authority, gender, and the vulnerability that comes from being disbelieved. It draws its terror from intimacy: the idea that the person closest to you can shape the evidence of your own mind.

Legacy
The film adaptation became a cultural touchstone, and the title entered common speech as "gaslighting," a term for psychological manipulation intended to make someone doubt their sanity. The production's atmospheric direction, strong performances, and focused screenplay secured both critical acclaim and a lasting influence on portrayals of domestic abuse and coercive control in fiction. The story endures as a clear, chilling example of how ordinary settings can conceal extraordinary cruelty.