Although Alfred Hitchcock left Britain for Hollywood in 1940, he occasionally returned to make films in his native country, the best-known probably being his penultimate film "Frenzy". "Stage Fright" was one of two films he made in Britain in 1949/50, the other being "Under Capricorn". As a number of other reviewers have pointed out, it is one of Hitchcock's least-know films; indeed, until recently it was the only one of his films, other than some of his early British pictures, that I had never seen.
Although the film was made in Britain, Hitchcock clearly felt he needed some international stars to give it greater box-office appeal abroad, hence the presence of Jane Wyman and Marlene Dietrich. Wyman is today perhaps best known as the first Mrs Ronald Reagan, and hence the only woman in American history to lose through divorce the chance to become First Lady, but in the fifties she was regarded as a major star. Although Eve is supposed to be British, a story is invented to explain her American accent, but no similar explanation is given for Dietrich's German one.
The film starts with a striking beginning in medias res. A young man and young woman are in a car, and it is clear from the dialogue that they are on the run from the police, having (or so we are led to presume) committed a crime. The earlier story is then told in flashback. The man is Jonathan Cooper, an actor and the lover of the famous stage actress Charlotte Inwood. (The film's title is a reference to its setting in the world of the theatre). He claims that Charlotte killed her husband in an argument and that he tried to assist her in covering up the deed, only to bring suspicion upon himself. He is now on the run, wanted by the police. The woman in the car is Jonathan's former girlfriend Eve Gill, who has agreed to help him escape. Eve suspects that Jonathan might have been framed by Charlotte and, disguised as a maid, infiltrates Charlotte's household to investigate.
By 1950 it was already an established convention in Alfred Hitchcock films that whenever a young man is suspected of a crime he is in reality innocent. (Examples include the characters played by Robert Donat in "The 39 Steps", Robert Cummings in "Saboteur" and Gregory Peck in "Spellbound"). In "Stage Fright", however, Hitchcock reverses this convention; at the end of the film it turns out that Jonathan is indeed guilty of the murder. Today a revelation that a character believed to be innocent is in fact as guilty as hell is a banal commonplace in "twist" thrillers, but in the early fifties there was a convention that flashbacks should always reflect the true situation, and Hitchcock was criticised in some quarters for a "lying flashback" which misleads the audience by presenting them not with the truth but with Jonathan's false story.
There are, in fact, a few hints that Hitchcock was preparing a surprise for his audience. If this were a standard Hitchcock movie, Jonathan would take the lead in proving his innocence, with Eve as his loyal helpmate, and by the end of the film their romance would have been rekindled. Here, however, Jonathan fades out of the action in the central part of the film, and it is Eve who takes the leading role. (This is one of the minority of Hitchcock films- "Shadow of a Doubt" is another- with a woman at its centre). Moreover, a romance develops between Eve and Inspector Wilfred Smith, the detective in charge of the murder investigation. (Another unusual feature- although most of Hitchcock's films deal with crime, individual police officers rarely play a leading role).
With a number of original features, this could have been one of the director's best films, but it misses out on that distinction. The acting is generally competently done, but there are no really outstanding contributions apart from Dietrich (who probably didn't need to try very hard in order to portray a sexually predatory actress). The main reason why the film is a relative failure is that it lacks both the great directorial set-pieces which we have come to think of as a Hitchcock hallmark and the sense of tension which pervades his greatest films. Eve's attempts to trap Charlotte into a confession are grotesque and unbelievable. Even the final scene, in which Eve is threatened by Jonathan, is rather perfunctorily done. In his lighter films Hitchcock could make very effective use of humour (such as the political meeting in "The 39 Steps" or the auction scene in "North by North West"), but here his attempts to be humorous, such as the scene between Alastair Sim and Joyce Grenfell in the shooting alley, slow down and detract from the film rather than adding to it.
There is also an untidy loose end relating to Charlotte, who is one Hitchcock character who actually gets away with murder. We learn that she incited Jonathan to kill her husband, which in the Britain of 1950 could have earned her a death sentence, but any evidence against her vanishes with Jonathan's death at the end of the film. (She has, at most, confessed to assisting Jonathan after the murder, which would not have been a capital offence). Overall, "Stage Fright" is one of the great man's weaker efforts. Fortunately, he returned to form back in Hollywood with "Strangers on a Train". 5/10
Although the film was made in Britain, Hitchcock clearly felt he needed some international stars to give it greater box-office appeal abroad, hence the presence of Jane Wyman and Marlene Dietrich. Wyman is today perhaps best known as the first Mrs Ronald Reagan, and hence the only woman in American history to lose through divorce the chance to become First Lady, but in the fifties she was regarded as a major star. Although Eve is supposed to be British, a story is invented to explain her American accent, but no similar explanation is given for Dietrich's German one.
The film starts with a striking beginning in medias res. A young man and young woman are in a car, and it is clear from the dialogue that they are on the run from the police, having (or so we are led to presume) committed a crime. The earlier story is then told in flashback. The man is Jonathan Cooper, an actor and the lover of the famous stage actress Charlotte Inwood. (The film's title is a reference to its setting in the world of the theatre). He claims that Charlotte killed her husband in an argument and that he tried to assist her in covering up the deed, only to bring suspicion upon himself. He is now on the run, wanted by the police. The woman in the car is Jonathan's former girlfriend Eve Gill, who has agreed to help him escape. Eve suspects that Jonathan might have been framed by Charlotte and, disguised as a maid, infiltrates Charlotte's household to investigate.
By 1950 it was already an established convention in Alfred Hitchcock films that whenever a young man is suspected of a crime he is in reality innocent. (Examples include the characters played by Robert Donat in "The 39 Steps", Robert Cummings in "Saboteur" and Gregory Peck in "Spellbound"). In "Stage Fright", however, Hitchcock reverses this convention; at the end of the film it turns out that Jonathan is indeed guilty of the murder. Today a revelation that a character believed to be innocent is in fact as guilty as hell is a banal commonplace in "twist" thrillers, but in the early fifties there was a convention that flashbacks should always reflect the true situation, and Hitchcock was criticised in some quarters for a "lying flashback" which misleads the audience by presenting them not with the truth but with Jonathan's false story.
There are, in fact, a few hints that Hitchcock was preparing a surprise for his audience. If this were a standard Hitchcock movie, Jonathan would take the lead in proving his innocence, with Eve as his loyal helpmate, and by the end of the film their romance would have been rekindled. Here, however, Jonathan fades out of the action in the central part of the film, and it is Eve who takes the leading role. (This is one of the minority of Hitchcock films- "Shadow of a Doubt" is another- with a woman at its centre). Moreover, a romance develops between Eve and Inspector Wilfred Smith, the detective in charge of the murder investigation. (Another unusual feature- although most of Hitchcock's films deal with crime, individual police officers rarely play a leading role).
With a number of original features, this could have been one of the director's best films, but it misses out on that distinction. The acting is generally competently done, but there are no really outstanding contributions apart from Dietrich (who probably didn't need to try very hard in order to portray a sexually predatory actress). The main reason why the film is a relative failure is that it lacks both the great directorial set-pieces which we have come to think of as a Hitchcock hallmark and the sense of tension which pervades his greatest films. Eve's attempts to trap Charlotte into a confession are grotesque and unbelievable. Even the final scene, in which Eve is threatened by Jonathan, is rather perfunctorily done. In his lighter films Hitchcock could make very effective use of humour (such as the political meeting in "The 39 Steps" or the auction scene in "North by North West"), but here his attempts to be humorous, such as the scene between Alastair Sim and Joyce Grenfell in the shooting alley, slow down and detract from the film rather than adding to it.
There is also an untidy loose end relating to Charlotte, who is one Hitchcock character who actually gets away with murder. We learn that she incited Jonathan to kill her husband, which in the Britain of 1950 could have earned her a death sentence, but any evidence against her vanishes with Jonathan's death at the end of the film. (She has, at most, confessed to assisting Jonathan after the murder, which would not have been a capital offence). Overall, "Stage Fright" is one of the great man's weaker efforts. Fortunately, he returned to form back in Hollywood with "Strangers on a Train". 5/10