Stage Fright (1950) - Hitchcock Friday #13

Alfred Hitchcock retuned to Britain in 1950 to make Stage Fright. From the mid-1940s he had started to become quite experimental in his approach, both technically and in narrative terms, and most of his 1940s experiments were critical and commercial disappointments. Stage Fright was another experiment and it had a decidedly mixed reception.

The willingness to experiment was part of Hitchcock’s genius and he would certainly have been aware that it was extremely risky. A director who has several flops in quick succession can find himself reduced to making cheap B-movies for Poverty Row studios. But if you don’t take risks you don’t learn anything and while Hitchcock made mistakes he never made the same mistake twice. And without his willingness to take risks we would never have had towering masterpieces like Rear Window, Dial ‘M’ for Murder, Vertigo, Psycho and The Birds.

In Stage Fright he utilises a certain plot device that makes this his most controversial and divisive film. I can’t describe the plot device because it would constitute a huge spoiler and if you haven’t seen this movie before it’s best to approach it without knowing about it. Knowing about it can prejudice the viewer against the film. And there are those who consider the device to be a masterstroke rather than a flaw.

Hitchcock himself considered it to have been a very serious mistake. What he was trying to do was perfectly valid, but after the movie was completed Hitch realised that the device did not work as he had intended it to work.

The movie begins with a young man, Jonathan Cooper (Richard Todd), on the run from the police. He is suspected of murder. The murder victim was the husband of major show business star Charlotte Inwood (Marlene Dietrich). Jonathan and Charlotte are lovers. There’s blood-stained dress that Jonathan will need to destroy.

Jonathan is involved with another young lady, aspiring actress Eve Gill (Jane Wyman). Even is hopelessly in love with Jonathan. She will do anything to help him prove his innocence. She considers Charlotte to be a very bad woman.

Jonathan is a man caught between two women, a sexy femme fatale and a good girl. Eve is a woman caught between two men. She’s in love with Jonathan but now she’s met Detective-Inspector Smith (Michael Wilding) and he’s such a nice kind man and so charming and rather good-looking and she thinks he’s a bit of a dreamboat.

Eve however still has to help Jonathan prove his innocence and she persuades her father Commodore Gill (Alastair Sim) to help. The Commodore thinks it’s all foolishness but it could be fun and he’ll do anything for his daughter.

A lot depends on that blood-stained dress. Maybe it could be used to break down Charlotte’s resistance and persuade her to confess.

This is a movie that feels very very English. It’s very similar in feel to Hitch’s great 1930s British movies. There’s also plenty of very English humour.

It benefits from a great cast. Michael Wilding is very solid and Richard Todd manages to be rather jumpy, as you would expect from a man with the police after him. Sybil Thorndyke is fun as Eve’s dotty mother. I have never liked Jane Wyman but I must admit that she’s excellent here. She somehow manages to be both mousy and feisty.

But the standout performers are of course Alastair Sim and Marlene Dietrich. Sim is in fine form playing the eccentric irascible loveable rogue Commodore Gill.

Dietrich gives one of her best performances. She’s delightfully seductive and wicked and scheming and manipulative but oddly enough she’s rather kind to Eve when Eve goes undercover as her dresser. Charlotte is incredibly self-centred but not gratuitously cruel. Marlene singing I’m the Laziest Girl in Town is definitely a highlight.

The final scenes are very well shot and very Hitchcockian, and very tense with the highlighting of the eyes.

How well the plot works depends entirely on how you feel about that notorious plot device, and whether or not you think it makes the ending difficult to accept. Either way Stage Fright is rather enjoyable and it’s recommended.