Lancaster had earlier played a similar manipulative huckster in the filmThe Rainmaker (1956).The film was very popular and a box-office hit - on a budget of $3 million, it grossed $11.3 million dollars.It was shot in the uncharacteristic and unfashionable aspect ratio of 1.33, in protest to the current prevailing trend for CinemaScope features.The film was nominated for five Academy Awards (including Best Picture and Best Score (Andre Previn)) and won three: Best Actor for Burt Lancaster (his sole Oscar win of four Best Actor nominations), Best Adapted Screenplay (Richard Brooks), and Best Supporting Actress (Shirley Jones with her sole Oscar nomination, known for her squeaky-clean role in TV""sThe Partridge Family).Hamilton""s play was published in book form in 1939, also titledGas Light.When it was produced on Broadway in 1941 and ran for almost three years, it was titledAngel Street, with stars Vincent Price and Judith Evans.She found the script of the film she was presently ""starring"" in - and read outloud:"The more she read, the more she realized what she had in her hands was nothing more or less than her life itself.This infuriated wrangler Langland, who had single-handedly recaptured the stallion leader of the horses after a rough struggle.