Stage Fright (1950)

Synopsis:

A young actress (Jane Wyman, Johnny Belinda) comes to the aid of a friend (Richard Todd, A Man Called Peter) who has been wrongly accused of murder. 

Reaction & Thoughts:

“There must be a lot that doesn’t appear on the surface… like wheels within wheels.”

The first time I watched Alfred Hitchcock’s Stage Fright, I was disappointed. It just didn’t feel like vintage Hitchcock. But I’ve been eager to rewatch it ever since I read Donald Spoto’s book, The Art of Alfred Hitchcock. To my surprise, Spoto went out of his way to praise the film, calling it “a major comic work.” It took a second viewing for me to realize that Spoto was right: this is definitely much better than I initially thought.

Despite lacking the grand set-pieces you expect to see in a Hitchcock movie, Stage Fright is superbly crafted, and takes many chances. My mistake was thinking that this was yet another “innocent-man-wrongly-accused” thriller. In truth, it’s a comedy-mystery hybrid, with naughty boy Hitchcock at his most mischievous.

It’s an interesting movie in part because the screenplay by Whitfield Cook (The Secret Heart), Alma Reville, and James Bridie (Under Capricorn) walks between two genres. It’s a sly black comedy, and it’s also an intriguing anti-thriller. Although it’s never as sophisticated as Hitch’s North by Northwest (1959), the film grows on you, and creates many fun moments that add up to more than you originally anticipated.

Stage Fright may seem, at first glance, nothing but light entertainment, but there is something deliciously Machiavellian about it. I really don’t want to say too much because I don’t want to spoil the surprises. I will say this much: the dialogue is sharp and witty, and the final M. Night Shyamalan-esque twist is nothing short of diabolical.

Aside from the offbeat humor and clever trickery, the thing I liked most about the movie is how it craftily exploits the similarities between the real world and the theater — according to Hitchcock, life is one long stage play where we are actors. The movie is also fraught with fascinating contradictions and ironies. For example, the heroine must tell one lie after another in order to uncover the truth.

No movie is perfect, and I would say that the film’s biggest flaw is Jane Wyman’s surprisingly inconsistent performance. She plays a young actress who disguises herself as a frumpy cockney maid in order to gather evidence, but Wyman looks the same throughout the whole movie. It’s hard for me to accept an actor in a role unless he/she is fully committed, and that’s what happened here.

Wyman’s half-hearted effort allows Marlene Dietrich (The Blue Angel) to steal the movie easily. Dietrich’s theater diva, Charlotte Inwood, is a half-half combination of Margo Channing and Norma Desmond. Her rendition of Cole Porter’s “The Laziest Gal in Town” is unforgettable. The irresistible British character actor Alastair Sim (Scrooge) is also pretty great as Wyman’s sarcastic father. Also with Michael Wilding (Under Capricorn) as a copper and Kay Walsh (Oliver Twist) as Dietrich’s maid.

Conclusions & Final Thoughts:

Although it’s not one of Hitchcock’s masterpieces, Stage Fright is still a beautifully crafted and enjoyable movie, like Hitchcock’s 1937 underrated comedy-thriller Young and Innocent turned inside-out. It has all kinds of wonderful little oddities. The characters are well-developed, and the story is interesting, especially the last half hour of the movie, which is quite good and unexpected. B&W, 108 minutes, Not Rated.

Hitch’s cameo

Theatrical Trailer: