For the Brontes

THE MADWOMAN UPSTAIRS by Catherine Lowell For someone like me — obsessed with Gothic literature, wrote their masters thesis on the “madwoman in the attic” in film and makes jokes about being “gaslit” — this book was serious fun. The spunky narrator, Samantha Whipple, has just been admitted to Oxford to study English literature. She…

Making a Murderous Film

When Alfred Hitchcock was searching for his next film idea, he came across the book She Who Was No More by Pierre Boileau and Thomas Narcejac. He inquired about the rights and found someone had beat him to it. It was already being adapted for the big screen by Henri-Georges Clouzot. It would become the intense…

LET’S MOVIE: Gaslight (1944)

Old movies have always been a part of my life. Ever since I was a little kid, I have been watching them. My parents let me see Rear Window  and North by Northwest before I was five. I watched them over and over and over. And I still watch White Christmas any time of the year. The acting,…