NipPierce Wow, this is a REALLY bad movie!

SparkMore n my opinion it was a great movie with some interesting elements, even though having some plot holes and the ending probably was just too messy and crammed together, but still fun to watch and not your casual movie that is similar to all other ones.

Catangro After playing with our expectations, this turns out to be a very different sort of film.

Lela The tone of this movie is interesting -- the stakes are both dramatic and high, but it's balanced with a lot of fun, tongue and cheek dialogue.

MisterWhiplash The first fifteen minutes of Hitchcock's Stage Fright feels so much like vintage work from this filmmaker - a set up that is so this director that even if you've only seen one or two of his movies it would feel like you're right at home in the fully realized world of Wrong Man Suspense he did so well - that one might almost take it for granted. Oh, ho-hum, another day another man who is caught suspected of murder (and it would appear the lady, here Marlene Dietrich and the man Richard Todd, who didn't work before or after with Hitch but has that same look to his eyes like Farley Granger in Rope or Strangers). This time it's set in England, so it's easy to pair it up with the movies that Hitchcock made before he left for America (and after this he'd only return twice more), as it's in black and white and the rest of the story is loaded with sometimes quirky but memorable and realistic feeling characters.But this opening is electric, starting with a car ride where Todd explains to worried Jane Wyman in flashback about how he got mixed up with Marlene Dietrich's theater star Charlotte Inwood (Wyman's Eve is an aspiring actress but not there yet, which of course will work its way into the narrative), and the important piece to the puzzle is a blood-stained dress. After this opening, now that Wyman along with her father (the definitive Scrooge, Alistair Sim, and it's a total joy to see him in this kind of role as the supportive, cunning but genial father), has to keep up a ruse around the detectives searching for Todd, we get a story that involves... performance, and what it means to take on characters and to have deception as the name of the game. Not completely unusual of course for Hitchcock - what would a good spy movie be, which this isn't but you know what I mean, without Playing A Character as part of the entertainment of it all - though in the world of the theater as the backdrop it makes it all the more fitting.I think that the work on the script and of course Hitchcock's direction mark this as something superior to what it could've been, and having Dietrich as the nonplussed diva (she asks and states things in such a way that could sound demanding or bitchy, but her tone is more bemused than really ever agitated so people do what she says and asks, even down to a last request in her last scene for a chair to sit on), and Sim as I mentioned as the father. Todd is quite good too, though basically the one note "I Didn't Do It" until a certain final twist ending that at least half the audience will guess without me saying it. The only one who feels a little out of place, and it harms the movie a bit too, is Wyman; she's a fine actress and in the right role (All That Heaven Allows, The Lost Weekend) she's solid. Here, she does what the script and director ask her to, but I didn't buy her as Sim's daughter - one line explaining away her being at an American conservatory aside - and perhaps the friction she and Hitchcock had behind the scenes shows, and not in a productive way.Don't get me wrong, she doesn't suddenly derail the production or stand out so badly, but she is noticeably not the same caliber of acting as Dietrich or Sim or Todd or some of the other smaller-role players. And there is a very slight lull midway through the movie where my attention started to wane as well, a mark against the script I suppose. But so much steam ends up being picked up at that big fair where Inwood is giving her performance in a tent (and Sim does a mighty fine job at not-but-still winning a doll for a particularly biting moment), that I got engrossed in the movie all the same. Stage Fright dances with becoming one of the director's classics, aided by an Alma Hitchcock and Whitfield Cook script, and the ending is rather (surprisingly) graphic despite not the full final "curtain" shown. If it's a little lessor than his other films, it's still better than many other's finest, with a fun suspense story and believable performances.

Leofwine_draca STAGE FRIGHT is a good, if not great, middle era mystery from director Alfred Hitchcock. The somewhat slight storyline is well suited to his methods, because it gives him the opportunity for plenty of suspenseful situations. In essence, a young, somewhat naïve actress is called in to help investigate a murder. She's forced to adopt two different identities depending on whom she interacts with during the case – for instance, when she's with the suspected murderess she pretends to be a servant, and when she's with the investigating detective she has to be herself. The story has the expected twists and turns along the way, along with some of Hitchcock's trademark directorial flourishes (clever editing, a cameo appearance, strong lighting, extreme close-ups).The film has dated slightly, with some of the dialogue not really ringing true, but that matters little when the cast is of this calibre. A team of luminaries has been assembled for the production, and all of them are very good. Jane Wyman is a lovely heroine, warm and full of integrity, and she makes a perfect foil for Marlene Dietrich's sinister, suspicion-inducing ice queen. Michael Wilding is excellent as a romantic lead, and Richard Todd is also good value for money in one of his early performances as the 'wronged man'. My favourite cast member by far is Alastair Sim, who has an openly comic role as an eccentric caught up in the proceedings. There's quite a lot of humour in this film and most of it comes from Sim, whose timing and delivery of his lines are both perfect.STAGE FRIGHT is more of a simmering than a burning thriller; there are no 'big' suspense sequences like in later Hitchcock films, but it does end on a high with a twist and a flourish that don't disappoint. My favourite moments include an interlude at a fairground and the moment when Wyman is literally 'caught between doors' at her employer's house. This makes for solid viewing and is a must for Hitchcock fans.

Spikeopath Stage Fright is directed by Alfred Hitchcock and collectively written by Whitfield Cook, Ranald MacDougall, Alma Reville and James Bridie, it's based on the novel "Man Running" written by Selwyn Jepson. It stars Jane Wyman, Marlene Dietrich, Michael Wilding, Richard Todd and Alastair Sim. Plot sees Wyman as drama student Eve Gill, who is asked by friend Jonathan Cooper (Todd) for help because he is on the run for the alleged murder of Charlotte Inwood's (Dietrich) husband. He swears his innocence and with Eve's father (Sim) also in tow, they set about trying to prove Jonathan's innocence. It kind of goes without saying, since 90% of other reviews for Stage Fright have made the point, but Stage Fright is a lesser Hitchcock movie in terms of quality. In fact, watching it now upon revisits, it's actually, well, a bit of a bore. Yes it finds the directing maestro dallying in the realm of acting = deception, himself the deception puppet master, and the cast can't be faulted for quality of performance; notably Wyman who leads the film as a heroine taking on a number of different guises to a number of different people. But it lacks menace, it lacks sardonic humour and after playing the audience like an appropriately named fiddle, the pay off lacks dramatic impact or surprise. It has a bit more to it than merely being one for Hitchcock completists, for one thing fans of British cinema get a nice cameo from the wonderful Joyce Grenfell, but unlike a good portion of Hitchcock's work, this one doesn't hold up on repeat viewings. Decent but not actually very good. 6/10

AaronCapenBanner Alfred Hitchcock directed this mystery thriller that stars Jane Wyman as Eve Gill, who helps her friend Jonathan Cooper(played by Richard Todd) when he is accused of murdering his lover's husband. The woman in question is actress Charlotte Winwood(played by Marlene Dietrich) who is being interrogated by the detective investigating the case, who also talks to Eve. Strangely, they find themselves falling in love, as the real murderer turns out to be an unpleasant surprise... Disappointing film once again has a good cast(to be expected from Hitchcock) but a disjointed story that ultimately leads nowhere, made semi-infamous because of, what turns out to be, a controversial "flashback".