Published/Performed: 1938 (performed in NY Dec 5, 1941 - Dec 30, 1944)
Author: Patrick Hamilton
Born: Mar 17, 1904 Hassocks, England
Passed: Sep 23, 1962 Sheringham, England
Film: Gaslight
Released: 1944
Patrick Hamilton (17 March 1904 - 23 September 1962) was an English playwright and novelist. He was well regarded by Graham Greene and J. B. Priestley and study of his novels has been revived recently because of their distinctive style, deploying a Dickensian narrative voice to convey aspects of inter-war London street culture. They display a strong sympathy for the disadvantaged, as well as an acerbic black humour.
Gas Light (known in the USA as Angel Street) is a 1938 play by Hamilton. The play (and its film adaptations) gave rise to the term gaslighting with the meaning "a form of psychological abuse in which false information is presented to the victim with the intent of making him/her doubt his/her own memory and perception".
Gas Light was an immense hit on its release, and it remains one of the longest-running non-musicals in Broadway history.[1] It remains a perennial favourite with both repertory and amateur theatre companies.
The play Gas Light was adapted for film twice: the 1940 British film Gaslight, directed by Thorold Dickinson, and the 1944 American film of the same name, directed by George Cukor. When the British film version was released in America, it played as Angel Street, the New York title for the original British play, to avoid confusion with the American film.
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