Stage Fright (1950)

(England, mostly London; contemporary)

Until about the last five minutes of the film, when the twist was reveled, I was a tad disappointed in this lesser known work of Hitchcock’s. The plot concerns aspiring actress Eve Gill (Jane Wyman in a fine follow up performance to her Oscar winning role in Johnny Belinda), who goes undercover as the ‘dresser’ of theater star Charlotte Inwood (Marlene Dietrich, not straying far from the familiar), to prove her philandering boyfriend (Richard Todd) innocent of a murder. Along the way Eve falls for police inspector Wilfred Smith (Michael Wilding), and must struggle to keep her now duel identities separate, as Wilfred is investigating the same case; this provides most of the films suspense. Devoid of the Hitchcock visual flourishes that we’ve come to expect, this is a good but mostly forgettable thriller, and perhaps the closest the great director has ever come to ‘phoning it in’. Alistair Sim is terrific however as Eve’s bemusedly devious father.