About

CINECITY: Rebecca / Gaslight (double bill)

Certification: PG

A double bill of classic psychological thrillers, exploring love and obsession. Introduced by author and film historian Pamela Hutchinson.

Rebecca (PG)
Dir: Alfred Hitchcock, USA 1940
With: Laurence Olivier, Joan Fontaine, George Sanders

Hitchcock’s Daphne Du Maurier adaptation was his first film in Hollywood after leaving England. The only one of his films to win the Best Picture Oscar, it remains one of his most chilling works.

A timid young woman (Joan Fontaine) meets and falls madly in love with a wealthy widower (Laurence Olivier) whilst working as a lady’s companion in Monte Carlo. After a whirlwind romance, she travels to her new home, the misty English country estate Manderley, but finds her newlywed bliss short-lived when she discovers that Rebecca–her husband's first wife, and object of withering housekeeper Mrs. Danvers’(Judith Anderson) fixation–wields a ghostly hold over everything and everyone who lives there.

Gaslight (PG)
Dir: Thorold Dickinson, UK 1940
With: Anton Walbrook, Diana Wynyard, Frank Pettingell, Cathleen Cordell, Robert Newton

Victorian London: twenty years after the murder of Alice Barlow, her house is finally occupied again. However, the husband of the couple who have moved in has a secret which he will do anything to keep hidden.

The term ‘gaslighting’, referring to a form of psychological abuse, originated with Patrick Hamilton’s successful 1938 play Gas Light, which was adapted just a couple of years later for this British film version. It is a minor miracle that Gaslight(restored by BFI in 2013)survived as MGM bought the rights to the play and then destroyed all the negatives and prints of Thorold Dickinson’s film before making their own version in 1944 with Ingrid Bergman and Charles Boyer. Thankfully a duplicate negative of the UK version had been deposited with the National Film Archive.

Part of Too Much: Melodrama On Film at BFI Southbank, in cinemas UK wide and on BFI Player, October to December 2025.

About CINECITY
Now in its 23rd year, CINECITY presents the very best in world cinema, with a diverse programme of premieres and previews, treasures from the archive, live soundtracks, exhibitions, talks and special events.

The festival takes place from 30 October until 16 November at venues across Brighton and Lewes.