TCM Spotlight: Gothic Movies: 'Ungentlemanly Callers'
TCM, beginning at 8 p.m.
First up on tonight's lineup of crazy men doing crazy things is the Patrick Hamilton play adaptation Gaslight (1944), which is also where the now-common term "gaslighting" originated. Gaslight is a dark thriller about a woman — played by Hollywood icon Ingrid Bergman — attempting to retain her sanity despite her husband's slow and subtle psychological warfare on her mind. This is followed by another dark psychological thriller, the Oscar-nominated Experiment Perilous (1944), based on the Margaret Carpenter novel in which a New York psychiatrist is plunged into the world of a sinister family after a chance meeting on a train. Next up are two films about newlywed women with husbands who may want to kill them, Secret Beyond the Door (1947) and 1941's Suspicion (pictured), followed by The Man in Grey (1943), which is centered around a brutish man who marries a pretty, young woman and then begins an affair with her friend. To end the lineup is the original film adaptation of Gaslight (1940), which studio execs attempted to destroy following the 1944 release.
