The Grapes of Wrath

 SPOILER ALERT! The plot will be discussed.

The Grapes of Wrath (1940), directed by John Ford, who won an Oscar for this movie, is based on the acclaimed novel by John Steinbeck. There are many modifications to appease the censors of the time, but Steinbeck was especially pleased by the performance of Henry Fonda. Ford was difficult to classify politically. Here he focuses on the plight of migrants during the depression and the fight against larger interests, including business and the government, who conspire against the less powerful. The story accomplishes its goal by focusing on one family’s odyssey of suffering from Oklahoma to California, and shows examples of some who are selfish and others who work together for the good of all.

The film starts with a long shot of a solitary man walking in the distance looking small against the vast emptiness of the rural road and land. The effect is to stress loneliness. The contrast between the size of the individual and the large area around him suggests the struggle to survive against overwhelming odds. The black and white cinematography adds to the starkness of the events of the story and the gritty existence of the characters.

The man is Tom Joad (Fonda). He stops at a market meaningfully called the Cross Roads, which suggests that the main character has reached a life-changing point in his life. He asks a trucker for a ride even though the sign on the vehicle says no hitchhikers allowed. Tom asks anyway and says a nice guy wouldn’t give into what someone else wrote on his truck. Here Tom is able to give the driver an excuse to give him a ride by blaming the rigid rule on someone else. It also shows how Tom doesn’t submit to practices that limit his freedom. 

The scene in the truck provides some backstory. Tom says he is going to his father’s sharecropper farm. The trucker asks questions about Tom’s trade and what he’s been up to, noticing that Tom’s hands look as if they have been using a pick or an axe. Tom is angry about how he is being interrogated and frankly tells the trucker he was in a penitentiary for the last four years after being sentenced to seven years. Tom almost enjoys justifying the man’s fears when he tells him he was in prison for homicide. Tom’s status in society appears to many others to be that of an untrustworthy outsider.

Walking on the road to the family farm Tom encounters the ex-preacher, Jim Casy (John Carradine), who recognizes Tom and reminds him that he baptized Tom. He says he’s not a cleric anymore because he lost the calling. However, he seems proud that he baptized many, which points to his ability of showing others a different way of seeing existence. The hard times appear to have shaken his faith as he says now, “I ain’t so sure of things.” He claims that maybe there aren't abstract ideas of “sin” and “virtue” but “just what people does.” The emphasis here is that how individuals behave shows the quality of people, not what they profess. Or, as the saying goes, “actions speak louder than words,” and from the looks of things, those actions haven’t been very beneficial for most folks. Tom catches the man up on his past. Tom killed a man with a shovel in a dance hall after the other guy stuck him with a knife. Even though it was self-defense, Tom was convicted, and he has no regrets about what he did, and would do it again if the circumstances presented themselves. Tom is obviously a man that will not be intimidated.

Stacy walks with Tom as the wind starts howling. The dust storms of the time were devastating for the poor people living in the heartland of the United States. The Joad house is dark and desolate. There are items that belonged to Tom’s family around the house, making the place seem like the decaying remains of a corpse. Tom discovers the stubborn and ominously named Muley Graves (John Qualen) seeking shelter in the dark. He says that Tom’s folks went to Tom’s Uncle John’s place two weeks prior. But, Muley says that everybody there will have to leave, because outside forces are “blowing” them off their land, like the strong winds. It’s not only the economics but the primal forces of nature, like a Biblical scourge, that is sending them away. Tom notes that after living on that farm for fifty years, he finds it difficult to believe that they must go away after putting down deep family roots into the land. He points out how feisty his mother is and wonders how she could not have fought off those trying to remove her. But, Muley says the family received their “notice” to vacate, so the implication is that there wasn’t much that she could do. They are migrating to California. However, Muley says defiantly that he will not leave. A flashback shows how the tenant farmers couldn’t earn enough to pay their rents and the representative of the company that owns the land said that with modern tractors the landowners would be able to pay far fewer people to harvest the crops. So, the farmers were being evicted. When asked who is responsible, the sharecroppers get the runaround so they can’t focus their anger on one individual. The company and the associated bankers are faceless entities as the whole system is conspiring against the average person. Muley echoes Tom’s indignation when he says that the land belonged to them since they were born there, worked on the farms, and even died on them.

Muley says that men came with large caterpillar tractors to force him and the other families off of their properties, leaving them with nowhere definite to live. We see the large wheels of the machines, and the caterpillar name suggests a mechanical plague invading the territory, rolling over everything in sight. The company smartly hires some of the farmers to run the tractors, undermining opposition. One of the operators of the machines says that Muley wouldn’t kill him because Muley would be put away for murder, and besides there would only be someone else to replace him. There is an inevitability to the onslaught, as Muley watched his house bulldozed. There is a shot of the tracks of the tractors making their imprint on the land, and all that is left are the shadows of those who must leave, looking like the ghosts of those who once inhabited the land. Muley, and his neighbors, have become unanchored, and now are wanderers. Muley stayed behind, but he feels that he is “just an old graveyard ghost,” which adds to the funeral feel of the place. After the storm, Muley tells Tom he has to get out of there because he is on parole and he is now a trespasser on his own land in this upside-down world. They hide as the authorities approach, looking for the squatting Muley. Tom can’t believe he would “be hiding out” at his own home.

 

At Uncle John’s place, Ma Joad (Jane Darwell, in an Oscar-winning Best Supporting Actress role) cooks for the family. (The name Joad sounds like Job from the Bible, who, along with his family, are tested by God and suffer greatly). Grandpa Joad (Charley Grapewin, an appropriate name for the film) fantasizes about all the grapes and oranges he will be able to eat once he gets to California, where they can earn money picking fruit. (These grapes of sustenance later become those of vengeful “Wrath” as noted in the movie’s title and in the Bible’s book of Revelation). Grandpa is trying to grasp some optimism out of these pessimistic times. Ma sees her son outside and just hopes that jail hasn’t perverted Tom into someone who has been hurt so much that he has become mean. The thrust here is that treating people with fairness is better than using oppression which has the effect of producing a threat to society. Noah (Frank Sully), Uncle Joad (Frank Darien), young Ruthie (Shirley Mills), and Pa Joad (Russell Simpson) greet Tom. Al Joad (O. Z. Whitehead) arrives in a truck with Tom’s pregnant sister, Rosasharn Rivers (Dorris Bowden) and her husband Connie (Eddie Quillan). Many of the men would like to think Tom escaped from prison, maybe because they want a hero to show that someone can beat the system. This joyful reunion is dampened by the arrival of the authorities telling the Joads that they have to vacate by the next day.

The family loads up their truck in the night which mirrors their dark fate. The truck is so weighed down that it’s questionable if it will be able to literally or figuratively carry all that the family has accrued in objects and memories over the many years there. Ma burns some old news articles and correspondence which shows the mournful letting go of her past life. She has a pair of earrings that remind her of better times, and decides to keep those as a remembrance. Despite his earlier attempt to rationalize that the move to California would be advantageous, Grandpa now refuses because “this is my country and I belong here.” The point here is that not all transplants are successful. They spike the old man’s coffee since being unconscious of what is happening to him is the only way to suppress his strong attachment to the land. Despite their heavy load, they generously invite ex-preacher Casy to go with them. A strong wind blows through the farm as if again signaling how the place is now like a ghost town without those who kept it alive.

They head out on Oklahoma Highway 66. They don’t have much money saved from selling stuff and working extra chores, so they must camp outside. They lay Grandpa on the ground and he feebly still says he isn’t leaving. He grabs a handful of dirt and dies. It’s as if his spirit will not allow him to leave, and his grasping of the soil symbolically shows his holding onto the land that he remains loyal to, even in death. Tom writes a note to be left on the old man’s body that says he died of a stroke and the family couldn’t afford a funeral, so they buried him. Tom says the note will show Grandpa was not killed in case the law digs him up. Tom’s sarcastic comment is that “the government’s got more interest in a dead man than a live one.” He indicts the system for its apathy toward the living while it pursues its own warped version of justice postmortem. Casy says at the burial site that there are words from a poem which read “all that lives is holy,” so he really prays for the living who “don’t know which way to turn.” In this world of pain, he seems to be saying that the dead have peace, relief, and a clear-cut road ahead of them, unlike those still above ground.

 

At a campsite, the Joads meet many other poor people. There is a man who bursts their hopeful balloon by saying he was already in California and there weren’t close to as many fruit-picking jobs there that would accommodate all the people who read the flyers and head out west. He says he lost his wife and two children to starvation because of false dreams. The government, represented by the coroner, covered up the real problem of hunger because it would be disgraceful, and recorded the deaths as heart failure. His story is a chilling indication that the Joads and others are on a road to unavoidable tragedy.

 

The truck is overheating and they stop at a gas station in New Mexico. The owner quickly asks if they have any money for gas. Tom doesn’t like the way the man treats them as if they were “bums.” The film shows that poverty fosters animosity from some as people are pushed to only caring about themselves to survive, and the lack of money undervalues an individual’s feeling of self-worth. Grandma (Zeffie Tilbury) pleads to get out of the truck as the journey is hard on someone of her advanced years. Pa asks for some bread for a dime for her at the diner there. The waitress is scornful, saying they only sell sandwiches, which the Joads can’t afford. But, countering the waitress is the generous owner who tells her to give Pa the bread. When two of the young Joad children enter, the waitress finds her humanity and sells them candy for a couple of cents. The truck drivers who stopped there leave her a big tip. The movie implies that the only way to get through punishing times as a nation is to help each other. 

 When they enter Arizona they encounter a border guard who is intimidating as he asks what they are carrying, and wants to make sure they keep moving so as to exit the state as soon as possible. He most likely does not want another group of needy people adding to the state’s number of impoverished inhabitants. The lack of hospitality from another public employee here again depicts the government’s indifference to the plight of the citizens. The local Highway 66 sign labels it a Will Rodgers road. It is ironic that the entertainer who was noted for saying he never met a man he didn’t like is referenced as people are treated with such negativity.

 

The Joads stop just before crossing into California, and they are not impressed as the picture postcards exaggerated the beauty of the state when compared to what they see. Grandma’s response is to spit out the window of the truck. It gets to the point where hopes are not realized, and they keep going just to have somewhere as a destination instead of simply giving up. At another gas station, the attendants there who have a job are judgmental about the “Okies,” saying it isn’t human to be so miserable, and the travelers don’t have any sense to cross a desert to a place where they only believe they can get work. But, as Tom suggests, when there isn’t any other alternative, the “nerve” to do something that seems outrageous is the only choice one has left. Meanwhile, Grandma is very ill and calls for her deceased husband. The movie implies that it is harder for elderly people to survive relocation from a place where they have become accustomed to living for so many years. 

 

California state workers stop them, and the harassment is extreme here as they are told to unload the mountainous amount of belongings to pass inspection. Again, luckily, there is a sympathetic man who sees how ill Grandma is and lets them go so they can get her to a doctor. The truck runs out of gas and they have to push it along the road, like Sisyphus struggling with his rock. They finally see fruit groves and haystacks, but that joy is undercut when Ma tells Tom that Grandma was already dead when the inspectors checked the truck. Ma pretended that she was deathly ill so that they could keep going without removing all their gear. The situation is so dire that people need the dead to help the living.

 

They push the truck into a city but the policeman there says that there isn't any fruit picking to be done there, and the work has moved further south. It seems that they will never find an end to their plight. The cop came from Oklahoma, too, but he tells them he has no choice but to send them to a transient campsite outside of town or else he will have to arrest them. He says that the real culprit is the person that sent out the flyers with false promises, which is symbolic of the American Dream turning into false advertising for these unfortunate people. The gas station attendant is also hoping for some monetary relief, but when Tom says all they can afford is one gallon, the look of dejection on his face shows how bad times are contagious.

 

The camp is full of broken-down shacks and downtrodden residents. As Tom says in a huge understatement, “it don’t look none too prosperous.” The looks on the Joad family members are ones of despair as they see that many have traveled to this supposedly lucrative land and wound up in the same situation from which they tried to escape. They set up a tent and Ma starts to make a stew. Several sad children come around offering to help for some food since they haven’t eaten anything but fried dough the day before. Ma feeds the family first but there is guilt about the children going hungry. Ma says that the children can have what’s left and they grab cans from a trash heap and scramble around the heated pot for the meager amount of leftovers. We have another example of sharing by those that can’t afford to give up anything. In the absence of a national effort to help the country as a whole, there is a chaotic surge for the little that is available.

 A hiring agent arrives in a nice suit and car with the local sheriff and asks if they want to work. But he will not say how much he’s going to pay. A man there says he has to show a license to hire people and put down in writing what are the wages. Otherwise, he can exploit the poverty of many by getting the job done with many men and paying a tiny amount of money to each one. This situation is where a union would protect the worker. The agent cues the cop to consider the man questioning the hiring tactics to be considered an “agitator,” and possibly resembling a thief in the area. The cop tells the man to get into the car. Tom, no stranger to injustice, says they don’t have any proof the man did anything wrong. The cop then threatens Tom. When the cop tries to apprehend the man, the man knocks down the policeman and runs. The cop fires his gun and hits a woman standing nearby, as she becomes collateral damage to the injustice of the authorities. The courageous men there come to the rescue of their comrade and knock the cop out when he chases the man. Casy tells Tom to hide since he is on parole and then he unloads the sheriff’s gun and tosses it away. He then unselfishly sacrifices himself, saying he was the one that got into a scuffle with the sheriff. Casy smiles since he probably feels that he is actually doing something to help others which he couldn’t do when he was a preacher, removed from what was going on outside his church. 

 

Tom comes out of hiding to warn the family that men in the town plan on burning the camp. Is this their way of removing the blight that proliferates all over the country so they don’t have to see it? Or, is it a punishment, blaming these people for their predicament, and thus washing their hands of responsibility? In addition, Tom’s brother-in-law, Connie, abandoned the family, basically saying he didn’t sign up for this grief. Tom’s sister, Rosasharn, cries over Connie’s leaving, and Tom tries to comfort her, which is not something he is accustomed to doing. She tries to rationalize to deal with her loss by saying Connie left to get some books to prepare for a job, and Ma encourages this fantasy to ease her daughter’s pain.

 

The camp disbands as the people there flee from the threat from the town. One may see this movement as similar to the book of Exodus in the Bible where the Jews escaped torment and began wandering for a promised land. But here that oasis is supposed to be California, which has not been what these searchers were looking for. Tom says that he is becoming angry because he sees the world trying to break their “spirits” and take away their “decency,” and Ma is worried as she was at Tom’s return that he might give into his “wrath.” He almost surrenders to his anger as he grabs a tire iron when they are confronted by a mob of men who don’t want the Joads to enter their town. But, he relents, and the men tell them to turn around because they don’t want anymore “Okies” there. The individual communities seem to be losing any sense of caring about fellow Americans, and the poverty of the country causes division in the nation as each place just cares about itself first. 

 As they fix a flat tire and Ma worries about their dwindling food supply as Tom shows concern about his sister getting close to her baby’s due date, a man driving by stops and gives them temporary hope about jobs picking peaches nearby. It is important to stress these people are always looking for work and are not seeking a handout. They arrive at the Keen Ranch, but there is a commotion with people lining the road and a fleet of policemen present. The cops ask if they are looking for work and direct them to proceed. The Joads do not hear it, but one man calls those arriving “scabs.” We realize that there is a labor strike happening, and the Joads are being recruited as strikebreakers. The impersonal bosses just see them as tools to do the work, as Tom sarcastically says they, “sure do wanna make you feel at home here, all right.” 

 

They are assigned to a tiny, dilapidated shack and don’t even get a chance to unload before they have to join a marching army of men, women, and children into the fields. As is shown in the film Matewan, which focuses on coal miners (analyzed on this blog), the company has the only store where the workers can buy supplies. The store dictates the cost of items, so the company gets back what it pays the employees, and keeps the fruit pickers impoverished so that they can’t get financially ahead and leave. 

 Despite Ma’s concern about him getting into trouble, Tom wants to find out why there was a problem at the gate of the ranch. A man wearing a badge confronts him, and he looks like a real cop but is a hired security guard. He tells Tom he can’t walk around and will be forcibly returned to his cabin. The place is run like a prison camp, so it’s as if Tom never left his incarceration. Tom says he will go back, but sneaks away and finds some men near the riverbank. Casy is among them and he tells Tom he wasn’t sent to jail, just expelled from town. The men there say a strike is going on, and they inform Tom that the five cents a bushel was what they were offered, but then it was cut to $2.50, which, as Casy says, results in, “one ton of peaches picked and carried for a dollar.” The extortion here is brutal. They say that they started to strike, and the company then attracted others to come, is paying them the five cents temporarily, and as soon as the strike is quashed, the wage will be $2.50 again. They tell him when the harvest is done, the bosses will let the workers go, and they will continue scrounging for work. Casy asks Tom to join the strike so that they can negotiate a higher wage. But, Tom reflects the plight of the hungry by saying at least that night they had some meat to eat, basically implying they can’t afford to worry about the bigger picture. The men press their argument by saying that the security men have been harassing the strikers, threatening to beat them up and “run us out.” 

 They hear men coming so the strikers along with Tom try to escape, but the security guards ambush them. Because Casy was considered a leader, and now tells the guards that they are taking the food out of the mouths of children, one man strikes Casy with a large stick, killing him. Tom can’t check his fury, and clubs one of the guards, killing that man. Tom is also hit and sustains a broken cheek before he can run off and get back to the cabin as sirens wail in the background.

 

The next day, Ma tends to Tom’s wound, and says that the guards are telling a different story which says nothing about Casy being killed first. There is talk of lynching the man who killed the guard if they catch him. Tom says he will leave to protect the family. Ma is nostalgic for when they had their own land where “there was a boundary,” which implies security. The longevity of the family was reinforced by the place they settled on and became identified with. As Ma says, “old folks died off and little fellas come.” They came to feel “kind of whole and clear,” knowing who they were and what their purpose was. But that clarity that brought unity is splintering as they have lost their place in the world. They have already surrendered two to death, Connie has left, and Ma says Al, Uncle John, and Pa don’t see themselves as part of a whole anymore. As Ma says, “they’re cracking,” and the rest are lost because they have “nothing to trust.” The film suggests the country has welched on its promise to protect the “general welfare” of its people and relinquished the “pursuit of happiness.” So Ma doesn’t want more dissolution of the Joads and begs Tom not to leave so he can help her hold the family together.

 

They hear a truck passing by and one of the ranch’s representatives tells the arriving family that they are now offering $2.50 a bushel. Despite the complaints as to how it’s impossible to live on that wage, the heartless response is to take it or leave it since more starving people are headed to Keen Ranch and they will be willing to take the low payment. Tom sees that what Casy told him was the truth, and he says the man was like a “lantern,” in essence enlightening him as to the exploitation that was happening. Casy may have achieved making the difference he hoped for.

 

The family tries to sneak away at night, hiding Tom under some bedding. Some guards stop them and ask about the other man who was with them. The Joads use the impersonal nature of the employers against them. Since there was no attempt to really know who was working on the ranch, the hired guards believe the family when they say that the other man was a hitchhiker who left. They still don’t have a promising destination to head toward, but instead keep running away from one hostile place after another. Adding to their problems, the truck finally breaks down and they use the grade in the highway to coast the vehicle. 

 

They arrive at the Farmworkers' Wheat Patch Camp. The difference here is that this place is run by the Department of Agriculture, and the camera zooms in on the sign to stress this point. The place is designed to take care of all of those in need, as opposed to local municipalities just protecting their own interests. A man greets them and says that there was a speed bump that slowed down their vehicle. He says it’s meant to protect children. We know that they are in a place that cares about the welfare of others. Here they are assigned to an area that has a “toilet, showers, washtubs.” There are schools here and they elect their own officials. Ma is amazed probably because here is a spot that demonstrates what a government is supposed to do to safeguard its citizens. Tom finds out that no cops can come in without a warrant. The place even has Saturday night dances. A licensed agent comes in to help with jobs. When Tom asks the pertinent question as to why there aren’t more places like this one, the man signing them in doesn’t know, because there isn’t any logical answer as to why there isn’t more help for victims of a cruel system that forgets about its people in jeopardy. 

 

Tom shuts off the water of an outside faucet that a woman neglected to close as he now feels a responsibility toward a place that shows respect for its residents. The Joad children aren’t familiar with inside plumbing and when they pull the chain on a toilet and hear the water flushing, they think they broke it. It is a funny and sad moment combined since it shows how deprived these young people are of simple conveniences. 

 

Tom has secured a job digging ditches on a farm. The owner likes him and the men working with Tom and warns them that there will be an attempt to stir up a fight at the next Saturday dance. The purpose is to give the sheriff cause to put the camp under the control of the local authorities. The reason is they are afraid of “reds” causing problems. Tom doesn’t even know that the term refers to communists, which shows how innocent people were lumped together with revolutionary political groups so as to undermine the legitimate claims for economic opportunities. 

 

The people at the camp are ready for the agitators and they spot them since the man they said invited them denies their claim. One of the residents saw men on the road nearby with guns, so they know that the sheriff’s department is ready to quickly intervene when trouble starts. They don’t want any evidence of violence on their part discovered that would allow for police intervention of their self-governing community. As soon as the outsiders try to start a brawl, the local men round them up and secretly constrain them. When the deputy sheriffs show up because there is supposed to be a riot they have to leave since everything looks peaceful. We have an example here of unity of purpose as an employer, employees, and fellow citizens band together to prevent injustice.

 

Police do show up at the camp at night because they are investigating the death of the security guard at Keen Ranch and find the Oklahoma license plate on the Joads’ truck. They say they will be back with a warrant. Tom overhears their conversation as a train whistle sounds in the background, and we know he has to leave to protect himself and his family. Ma wakes up and seems resigned to what must be. Tom then delivers his famous speech. He says he has been thinking “about our people living like pigs,” and the disparity in wealth that allows for “maybe one guy with a million acres and 100,000 farmers starving.” He says that “as long as I’m an outlaw anyways, maybe I can do something.” His is implying that his outsider status allows him to take risks to help others since he has no self-interests to protect. He states the transcendental belief that each person doesn’t have a separate soul but there is “one big soul that belongs to everybody,” that we are all bound together and therefore harm to one hurts all, as does good for one benefits all. If he is no longer a separate entity, then he is part of a universal force of existence. That is why he says, “I’ll be all around in the dark. I’ll be everywhere, wherever you can look. Wherever there’s a fight so hungry people can eat, I’ll be there. Wherever there’s a cop beating up a guy, I’ll be there. I’ll be in the way guys yell when they’re mad. I’ll be in the way kids laugh when they’re hungry and they know supper’s ready. And when the people are eating the stuff they raise, and living in the houses they build, I’ll be there, too.” He says goodbye to Ma and walks off. There is a shot that bookends the opening, with Tom again walking alone. But now the shot is looking up at the vast sky and after what he learned from his travels and what he said, we know that Tom is not alone. He isn’t wrapped up in his own troubles, but instead feels himself part of the struggle and fulfillment of all things.

 

The family heads out for work in Fresno. Even though Ma admits that she was afraid about how things would turn out, feeling everybody was against them, she says she doesn’t feel fear now. She says that for a woman, life is like a “stream” that flows and has “little eddies and waterfalls, but the river, it goes right on.” So, even though there are setbacks along the way, they can get back on track. Pa says they have had it rough, but Ma says it makes them “tough,” and they will not be beaten. She cheers their resilience as she declares that, “We’ll go on forever, Pa, because we’re the people.” Her last words end with a paraphrase of the U. S. Constitution, which begins with a message of inclusiveness.

The next film is The Great Santini.

Gaslight

 SPOILER ALERT! The plot will be discussed.

The title of this film, Gaslight (1944, although there is a shorter 1940 version), directed by George Cukor, has become a psychological term which indicates when a person manipulates another to the point where there is doubt on the part of the victim about the perception of reality. So, the theme of illusion versus reality dominates the story. The movie also deals with how love for a person is not as important to some who value materialism as the primary source of affection.

 

The film begins with the street gas lamps being lit in London around 1874. The image is meaningful since brightness is supposed to shed light on what has been obscured by darkness. Ironically, in this film, the gaslight is used by the villain to suggest what is not there, and thus makes the heroine not believe her own eyes. There is a flashback to Thornton Square in the city and a newspaper headline notes there has been a strangling at this location, with the killer still at large. Paula Alquist (Ingrid Bergman, winning the Best Actress Oscar for this role) is dressed in mourning black as she leaves the house where her Aunt Alice, a concert singer, and she lived. Alice Alquist was the victim noted in the newspaper. Paula is to go away to Italy and is advised to forget the gruesome past and focus on her own future as a singer. 

 

Time has passed and Paula is practicing singing opera with the help of Maestro Guardi (Emil Rameau). Her selection is from Lucia Di Lammermoor, an opera which has a woman going insane, an instance of foreshadowing. Gregory Anton (Charles Boyer) is playing the musical accompaniment. After he leaves, Guardi tells Paula that her heart is not in her singing, that she seems too happy to be playing a part that is tragic. He guesses that she is in love, and tells her that she did know tragedy in her past, but she should enjoy her current joy because “happiness is better than art.” He is advocating a vacation away from her singing and immersing herself in life instead (the Victorian Age poets such as Browning, Tennyson, and Arnold were torn between withdrawing from society to create art versus engaging in life’s adventures). However, while she believes she is choosing an outgoing life, the result is just the opposite.

It turns out that Gregory is the man she is in love with. Outside, he states how he wants to marry her. She admits she is hesitant because she doesn’t know much about him, having only known each other for two weeks. That is the first red flag waved at us. He asks if she is afraid of him, and she says “never,” which will turn out to be an ironic statement. Paula does decide to slow things down a bit and go away for two weeks.

 On the way to her retreat at Lake Cuomo, an elderly British woman, Miss Bessie Thwaites (Dame May Whitty), who loves a lurid tale of murder, exhibits her excitement about a book she is reading that has a woman finding out that the man she married has six previous wives “buried in the cellar.” Here is more foreshadowing about the hidden sinister nature of a lover. The woman resides in Thornton Square, where Paula lived and her aunt was murdered. It is a spooky coincidence. Appropriately, as it turns out, Paula, after hearing about murders from Miss Thwaites, encounters Gregory, who surprises Paula right outside her train car door. Even though she said she wanted to be away from him for this trip, she is so under his spell that she is happy to see him.

The two get married and go on their honeymoon. It seems very romantic, but then he suggests that they settle in London, because he was there once and always thought it would be comfortable living in a house in one of the city’s squares. London is the place that embodies disturbing ghosts of Paula's past, and she is upset to hear about it. She tells him that she didn’t know her father and her mother died when she was young, so her Aunt Alice raised her. She left the house to Paula, which came to feel like a “house of horror” in Paula’s dreams. (It does seem convenient that Gregory wants to live in the type of house in London that Paula just happens to own). But, she says that she hasn't lived in fear since she has known Gregory because he has driven it away. Her statement turns out to be ironically inaccurate. She proclaims that she has found “peace” with his love, and declares, despite his false objections, that she can now live in the Thornton Square house with him.

 Paula and Gregory arrive at the Alquist house. The couple enter the building to a soundtrack with slow bass tones, suggesting Paula’s dread of the place. The house looks like an abandoned museum with furniture and chandeliers cloaked in cloth, looking like burial shrouds. The dark lighting and shadows add to the macabre feel. The appearance is reflected in Paula’s words when she says the drawing room used to be full of light and life, and now, “the whole place seems to smell of death.” She is caught up in the remembrance of the horrible loss of her aunt. There is a painting of her aunt in the role of the Empress Theodora over the fireplace, and Gregory appears awestruck by the portrait. Gregory points out that Paula resembles her aunt, which is another ominous fact. Paula found her body right under the painting. Paula says she can’t be there with all these reminders of her aunt’s death. According to IMDb, the crowded interior setting symbolizes “Paula’s increasing sense of claustrophobia.” Gregory suggests that they put all of Aunt Alice's stuff in storage so Paula will not be reminded of her death. Paula wants to have parties in the house again, but Gregory wants their privacy for a while. This isolation will be used for devious reasons. Gregory begins to play the piano, and Paula comments that the music he plays is what her aunt used for an encore. It is another interesting coincidence, showing how Gregory may know more about Paula’s aunt than he divulges. Paula picks up some sheet music which contains a letter to her aunt written two days before the murder from a person named Sergis Bauer. It relates wanting to see Alice again after Bauer followed her to London. At the man’s name, Gregory hits a symbolically discordant note, stands up, and forcibly grabs the letter out of Paula’s hands. He tries to recover by saying that it isn’t the letter, but the fact that all of these reminders of what happened to her aunt will bring back Paula’s fears. He says she must forget her. It is interesting here that Gregory encourages forgetting something and later accuses Paula of being absent-minded. But, Paula quietly disagrees, distinguishing between remembering her aunt from forgetting what “happened to her,” as she looks sideways in a wary way at what Gregory suggested. 

 

Miss Thwaites questions the Antons’ cook, Elizabeth (Barbara Everest) about the couple receiving visitors. Elizabeth tells her that Gregory doesn’t feel that seeing others is good for Paula, and she notes that Paula “hasn’t been feeling too well lately.” By being more isolated, Paula has no means of diverting herself from her grief about her aunt, and doesn’t have objective reference points to gauge her emotional status. She becomes more dependent on Gregory, and also more vulnerable. Interestingly, Miss Thwaites says the house looks fine from the “outside,” which metaphorically suggests that the benign appearance may be misleading. 

 Gregory is giving instructions to the new housemaid, the sassy Cockney, Nancy (Angela Lansbury, in her first film role, for which she received an Oscar nomination), who reveals an immediate attraction for Gregory. During the film she comes onto Gregory which he fuels with his compliments and thus makes her an unwitting ally in undermining Paula. He brands Paula as disturbed by saying Nancy must not “bother” Paula “about anything,” with the excuse that his wife is “highly strung.” Gregory issues a warning when he says Nancy should remember his instruction, since the prior employee did not keep her distance from Paula and was fired. Here is more evidence of Gregory’s attempt to dominate Paula's life. 

It is three months since Paula and Gregory were married and he gives her a brooch that belonged to his mother. The pin needs fixing, and he tells her that she loses things so she must remember he is putting it in her purse in the meantime. He is undermining her mental capacity here as she must defend her memory in this scene. She seems glad to get out for the afternoon, which emphasizes the impact of her recent confinement on her. Nancy comments to Elizabeth that Paula doesn’t look ill to her, and the suspicious Elizabeth comments that Gregory “keeps telling her she is,” which builds concern about Gregory’s intentions.

 

The couple visit the Tower of London, an ominous place for Paula given its history of imprisonment. The guide relates gruesome details about beheadings, the separation of the brain from the body, which, given this story, reminds one of “losing one’s head,” a possible reference to insanity. Appropriately, at this moment Paula opens her purse after using a handkerchief and can’t find the brooch. She is confused as to how she could have misplaced it. She wanders off searching for the missing object, and when Gregory approaches her, she pretends that nothing is wrong, covering up her version of the truth.

 The couple stroll outside and pass by Brian Cameron (Joseph Cotton), who appears to recognize Paula as he doffs his hat. She reflexively smiles in return. Brian tells his children that he feels as if he has seen a ghost, most likely because Paula looks like her dead aunt. Gregory interrogates Paula as to why she acted as if she knew the man if she says she didn’t. He sows more of his doubts about her sanity when he says her present behavior is, “like the other things.” He tells her that she has been forgetful and suggests maybe it’s because she is tired. She hooks onto that reason and wants to go home, reflecting fear about her own mental health. He says that they should still see the Crown Jewels in another building. Since he said he didn’t know London she wonders how he knows where the jewels are, which creates doubt concerning Gregory’s honesty. His excuse is that the guide told them and uses her inquiry to add being overly “suspicious” to her list of symptoms. As they look at the Crown Jewels, Gregory seems to know their whole history, and looks mesmerized as he relates facts about them. In the crowd is Brian who secretly observes the couple. Paula again says she wants to go home, which she has come to feel is her sanctuary.

 

At the house, Gregory asks for the brooch to be repaired, which agitates Paula, given her husband’s accusations about her absent-mindedness. She sadly confesses she doesn’t have it, and asks if he is sure he placed it in her purse. He is condescending as he wonders why she doesn’t even remember him putting it there. His plan is working since she admits that she is starting to “not trust my memory at all.” He plays it down telling her not to “worry,” but the concern has already taken hold.

 Paula wonders, if she and Nancy have not turned on additional lamps, why the gaslight in her bedroom has diminished in brightness (the fuel supply to individual lamps goes down when other lights are used). Here is the source of the title of the movie which metaphorically links the decrease in the lamp’s flame to a lack of rational powers. Alone, Paula hears footsteps in the boarded-up floor above her, where her aunt’s belongings have been sequestered. Paula’s wide eyes reflect her fears concerning her mental faculties.

 

Miss Thwaites encounters Brian in the square as he stares at Paula’s house. She assumes Brian is curious about the murder that took place there and comments that the new inhabitants are odd. She mentions that Paula never leaves. But, Paula now comes through the front door for a walk. She hesitates and goes back to ask Nancy for an umbrella. The housemaid, acting as Gregory’s proxy, asks what she should tell Paula’s husband if he asks where she is and what she is doing. Paula is so unsure of herself at this point and intimidated by Gregory’s assessment of her that she aborts her walk and retreats to the supposed safety of the house.

 

Brian’s curiosity leads him to look at the police records at Scotland Yard regarding Alice Alquist’s death. Brian is the assistant to General Huddleston (Edmund Breon), who is upset that Brian is digging through the cold case’s documents. Brian admits that he was a fan of the deceased singer, met her once, and thought her beautiful. The General says that Brian is using the case to meet the woman who looks like Alice. But, Brian says he thinks there is something odd going on. The General accidentally mentions that the famous jewels of another country, which Alice owned, went missing after her death, and this fact was thought to be the motive behind the killing. The absence of the jewels was hidden from the public, which lends to the film’s theme of concealed motives. This revelation also adds insight into Gregory’s fascination with precious gems, since he said of the Crown Jewels that they “have a life of their own,” as if they were more alive for him than other people. Brian subsequently enlists a policeman, Williams (Tom Stevenson), to aid him in his investigation.

 Gregory appears to be sleeping in a chair in front of a fireplace, but he is awake, which adds to him being a man of deceptive appearances. Paula seems to want to add fuel to the fire, but hesitates. When Gregory shows that he is not asleep he tells her to ring for the housemaid to tend to the fireplace. She says she can do it, but he sternly says that they have discussed the matter before, and he insists that she call for Nancy. At this point Gregory has caused Paula to be afraid of doing anything, in this case warning her that she might set the house on fire. When Nancy arrives, Gregory seductively comments about how pretty Nancy looks. He mentions that there is a new policeman patrolling the area (Williams), and possibly her makeup is to attract him as she has other cops before. His words instill in Paula his supposed jealousy toward Nancy. But they also show his astute observational abilities about the new patrolman. After Nancy leaves, Paula questions Gregory’s flirting with the housemaid, which has made Nancy hostile toward Paula. Gregory just uses Paula’s accurate observations to paint his wife as imagining things.  He pretends to be concerned by saying it hurts him when she is “ill and fanciful,” portraying her as prone to delusional thinking. 

 

Gregory shows his anger again when Nancy says that Miss Thwaits is there with someone else, which turns out to be Brian, and they want to visit with Paula. Paula says they have turned away the neighbor several times. Gregory erupts, saying Miss Thwaits is a “busybody” and he doesn’t want people in his house, and then tells Nancy to send them away. Paula is wide-eyed at the ferocity of her husband’s reaction. She says she would like to see Miss Thwaits, and then he calmly places the blame on Paula by saying all she had to do was to say so. 

 

Gregory tells Paula that she has no time for company since she must prepare for going out that evening. She was unaware of that fact, but is now wondering if Gregory told her and she forgot. Paula darts her eyes around in worry, as if searching her memory (Bergman visited a mental institution and found patients shifted their eyes about out of uncertainty about what was happening). He says that it is a surprise and that he is taking her to the theater, so she hasn’t forgotten about it. She is elated that this fact is not another item she does not remember. She dances and sings as he plays a waltz. But, he stops and looks stern again as he points out that a small painting has been removed from the wall. He asks her to get it, and of course she doesn’t have an inkling as to what happened to the painting. She is getting whiplash from how she is being jerked from one emotional state into another. The servants swear that they did not remove the picture. Gregory glares at Paula and tells her to find the item. She goes up the stairs and reaches for the painting behind a statue on the landing. She says it was the same place the picture was found twice before and that is why she looked there. He now deprives her of going to the theater after getting her hopes up by saying she is in no state to go out. She concludes, “then I don’t know what I do anymore,” which is exactly the desperate state that Gregory wants her to be in. She pleads that she needs his patience to deal with her as she clings to his stability to keep her sane. It is ironic since he is the one driving her mad. She begs that he not go out because she hears voices and footsteps and is afraid of the house when she is alone. He closes the bedroom door on her, as if locking a prison cell. 

 

Gregory goes out in the London fog which is symbolic of the psychological confusion in which he is enshrouding Paula. He has a studio where he says he works on his music. He acts as if he is walking there, but then stops and hides in the shadows, suggestive of his covert activities. Paula again hears walking above her in the closed-off section of the house. The gaslight dims, supposedly for no reason, adding to her fears of irrationality.

 Brian attends a concert organized by Lady and Lord Dalroy (Heather Thatcher and Lawrence Grossmith), hoping to sit next to Paula to find out why she is so isolative. But Gregory wrote they were not going because Paula was not well. However, Paula gets dressed up and asserts that she is feeling okay and wants to get out into the world and visit with Lady Dalroy, who was kind to her as a child. Gregory, not wanting to support her in this act of independence, tells her she must go by herself. When his ploy doesn’t work to keep her home, he then acts happy to go with her. He is like Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde as he shifts back and forth between pretending to be loving and supportive and then acting harsh and dismissive. Nancy calls a cab for the couple and is approached by Brian’s spy, Constable Williams from Scotland Yard, and we learn that he has been seeing her on a regular basis so he can gather information. 

 As the music plays at the concert, there is a shot of Gregory and Paula listening with Brian seen in the background, pictured between the couple, implying he is coming between the Antons, like a wedge to pry apart the destructive connection between the two. Gregory catches Brian looking at them and senses a threat since he most likely remembers him from his previous walk with Paula. Paula is finally looking happy as she hears the pianist playing music she loves. But, Gregory will not allow her that pleasure as he tells her that his watch is missing, again injecting doubt as to her rationality. Her eyes dart around again as if trying to escape the fear of madness. Bergman is quite good at showing a look that implies she wants mercy and not the judgment that Gregory delivers. He takes her purse and pulls out the watch, like a policeman finding the damning evidence of a transgressor. Paula breaks down in tears and disrupts the proceedings, and he escorts her out. Gregory’s plotting substantiates his claims among those in attendance that his wife is not emotionally well. 

 

At home, Gregory berates Paula by saying he tried to confine her to the house to prevent her from doing “these crazy, twisted” things. As she questions her sanity, she searches her actually rational mind as to when his accusations began. She remembers it was when she found the letter dated just prior to her aunt’s murder from Sergis Bauer which stated he wanted to see Alice again. He agrees with her but now says that there was no such letter, and she hallucinated its existence. He says that he learned that her mother also heard voices and footsteps and went insane and died in an asylum. The thought that she may have inherited that madness pushes Paula to break down in fearful tears. Gregory is in a rage now as he accuses her of wanting to go to the concert to meet Brian, who she continues to deny ever knowing. Despite his accusations that she is a liar, she pulls it together to say that she “never lied” to him. He says that she knew Brian but probably forgot about him like everything else. He has laid the groundwork to now call in doctors, and says the required number is “two,” which means he is talking about certifying her to be institutionalized. 

 

Gregory again walks outside in the foggy night, which mirrors his dark deeds, as Williams passes him by. Gregory lights a cigarette and the match reveals a sign that shows the house next door is open to new renters. There is a man standing behind the trees in the square observing Gregory, and it is Brian. Gregory repeats his previous actions of hiding in a back alley and then he disappears as neither Williams nor Brian sees him afterwards. There is no back entrance to his own house, so the two men wonder if Gregory somehow went back to his own place for some reason through the adjacent empty property.

 

There are more noises from above Paula’s bedroom and of course we can assume that it is Gregory gaining access to the closed off section of the house and creating the commotion and drawing gas from lights to drive Paula crazy. She cries out to Elizabeth, who is hard of hearing, which seems to be the reason that Gregory hired her so she wouldn’t hear the sounds being made by him. 

 

Williams visits Brian as he is drawing a sketch of how Gregory might be getting back inside the house. Williams said he saw Gregory during the night walking back to his house and he appeared disheveled, as if he was rummaging in a cellar. The constable also says that Gregory told Nancy that Paula may be going away for some time and wanted Nancy to stay on and look after him. Brian and Williams plot to have Williams occupy Nancy that night as Brian gets inside the house to talk with Paula while Gregory is out. 

 Brian gets past Elizabeth by saying he is there to help Paula. Despite Paula’s attempts to dismiss Brian, he persists and gains her trust by showing her a glove her Aunt Alice gave him when he attended one of her performances. She is happy to see that the glove matches the one she has. He sees the light dim and hears the noises above, which shows Paula that she is not imagining things as her husband made her believe. Brian gets her to admit that all these odd occurrences happen when Gregory is away and then they stop when he returns. Brian gets her to conclude that it is her husband entering next door and accessing the boarded-up floor above from the roof. Brian discovers that all her aunt’s belongings are in the secluded area. Brian must be guessing that Gregory is searching for the missing jewels that could be hidden among Alice’s personal items. 

 

We finally get a look at this secret upper floor as Gregory tosses and rips items looking for the jewels. Brian asks if Gregory has a weapon and Paula directs him to his desk. Gregory’s revolver is missing, and Paula discovers the letter that Gregory said she imagined. The name of Sergis Bauer is familiar to Brian who remembers that he was the pianist who played for Alice Alquist. The handwriting on the letter to Alice and the one sent to Lady Dalroy are the same, so Gregory is Bauer, and hid the true reality behind a false façade. Brian says that Bauer killed Paula’s aunt and searched for the jewels but couldn’t find them. By marrying Paula and then having her declared mentally incompetent, he would have open access to Paula’s aunt’s possessions. Brian also knows that Sergis Bauer has a wife who lives in Prague. All that was deceptively hidden is now revealed. Paula is devastated because she realizes there was, “nothing real from the beginning,” no real caring, and the man who she loved and thought loved her was a fraud. The things that she felt might be delusions were real, and what she thought was true was a lie.  

 Back upstairs, Gregory sees moonlight coming in through the skylight as it illuminates a dress that Alice wore. The jewels were sewn into it and Gregory removes them. Brian, thinking Gregory will return to the house from the street, waits for the man outside. Instead, Gregory squeezes through an opening where the boarded-up door leads to the house. He goes to his desk and finds that it has been opened. He accuses Paula of breaking into the desk and she tells him that a man arrived and opened it. Gregory questions Elizabeth who strangely says there was no man, which feeds into the idea that Paula is delusional. (Is Elizabeth complicit in Gregory’s plot? Possibly not, as she may just not want to contradict her employer. The film is unclear in answering this question). Just as Paula begins to think she hallucinated Brian, he shows up at Gregory’s bedroom door. He entered the upper floor and now has the dress from which Gregory stole the gems. 

 

Gregory tries to shoot Brian, but the latter prevents him as the gun discharges. Gregory heads for the upstairs room with Brian and Williams, who heard the shot go off, chasing him. They overcome Gregory and tie him to a chair. Brian hands Paula the jewels. She wishes to speak to Gregory alone. He tries to talk his way out of it, saying Brian is lying about Gregory because Brian is in love with her. He tries to tell lies that he hopes she wants to believe. He says he changed his name because his early life was a musical failure. When he mentions Italy, she insightfully says that she felt that maybe she “dreamed” those times, since they now seem unreal because he was not who he pretended to be. He asks her to go to a drawer to get a knife and free him. She picks up the knife and is sarcastic, saying she is mad so she can’t be holding a knife, or maybe she misplaced it, but can’t remember. She then finds the brooch he hid, and yells at him, saying that because she is insane, as he said, she can have no pity for him. She calls to Brian to take Gregory away.

 

As he leaves, Gregory says that the jewels were “a fire in my brain that separated us,” and admits he always wanted them. As he says these words, his eyes widen and shine like a blaze. For Gregory, the objects he obsessed over having, came to possess him.

 

The film ends with Brian escorting Paula onto the balcony of the upper floor as the cloudy night will make way for the light of day, and will allow Paula to see things clearly again, and freely.

The next film is The Grapes of Wrath.