The Right Man - Alfred Hitchcock's Stage Fright

As I was watching Stage Fright, it occurred to me that the old saw about sex and pizza applies to Hitchcock's lesser works as well. Stage Fright isn't the greatest, but it's still pretty good. Of course, I'm comparing Hitchcock to himself here. Compared to other thrillers playing in your local theater in 1950, Stage Fright probably ranks pretty high. At any rate, I'm big big fan of Alfred Hitchcock, but this movie sailed right past me. When I saw it in the TCM lineup, I had to do a double take. How did this one completely escape me?
I'm a bit conflicted about what to include in this review, and what to leave out. Generally, I don't bother myself with being concerned about spoilers. Some of the movies I watch are 100 years old. What's the point of not "giving away" the plot points? Stage Fright is 61 years old (a great looking 60, granted), and if you know anything about it or even read a capsule review, you might already know. But I didn't know... at all. I didn't even know there was anything to know, so it's hard for me to judge how knowing would have affected my viewing and my reaction to the movie. See, now I've told you there something to know... and you know there's something to know, which I didn't know... agh! I will try to tip toe around the spoiler, and if all you know is that there's something to know, watch the movie before you know more.

Here's what is great about Stage Fright: it's thoroughly Hitchcockian. If you love Hitchcock, you know what I mean. From the score to the set up to the pacing to the shots, it's Hitchcock through and through. But Stage Fright also embraces that alternate side of Hitchcock which is typically absent from "golden era" Hitch films like Vertigo and Rear Window. That darkly humorous, wryly playful Hitchcock that shows up early and late in his career - think (the first) The Man Who Knew Too Much meets The Trouble with Harry - makes a rare '50s appearance in this movie.
Here's what's lacking in Stage Fright: great acting. True, we have the incomparable Marlene Dietrich, but I'm not sure Hitchcock really knows what to do with that kind of female personality. She's no delicate blonde doll after all, nor is she ever a straight up femme fatale. Dietrich is complicated and she feels a bit wasted in this movie. Jane Wyman takes the lead here and she's okay. But Jane Wyman is no Doris Day and Richard Todd can't even serve Jimmy Stewart a drink. Again, the actors are serviceable, just not fantastic.

The film starts, after the raising of "The Safety Curtain" on a theater stage, with something we expect from Alfred Hitchcock - a man wrongly accused a crime and a plucky sweetheart who believes him and is willing to work her tail off to prove him innocent. Then we're drawn into the stage actor's world, where everyone is overly dramatic and never, ever tells the truth. Eve Gill, that plucky gal, is a drama student and aspirining actress who is eager to try on the role of a Nancy Drew-ish girl detective, complete with false identities, fake accents, and physical disguises. Eve's father Commodore Gill (played by Alistair Sim) is deeply invested in fancying himself a smuggler. Dietrich's Charlotte Inwood plays the part of grieving widow like a champ, all the while lamenting the dreary blackness and prudery of widow's weeds. Through the power of narrative irony, we the viewers know what is true and what is not true, and we are dazzled by the piling on of lies, deceptions, half truths, and dissimulation. It's starting to feel like a meta-examination of the inherent falsehood of the craft of actors.

And then... well I'll stop. Hitchcock's Stage Fright takes a hard left. Not quite the narrative u-turn Psycho will take some years later, but a shocking, confounding, and (in its time) controversial turn. I'll say that the film becomes a meta-examination of the inherent falsehood of an entirely different kind of craft. If you haven't seen Stage Fright, go watch it. And before you get your knickers in a twist, remember, as Jean Luc-Goddard said, "Cinema is the most beautiful fraud in the world."
Further Reading (after watching of course!):
A very erudite examination of Stage Fright from Senses of Cinema.
A critical take from This Distracted Globe.
A closer look at the original work Stage Fright was adapted from.
Watch the theatrical trailer
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jSPDFY_i-uQ&w=425&h=349]
Watch a delightful compilation of Hitchcock cameo's, including Stage Fright
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qik6Va6RNqA&w=425&h=349]

There's Always Divorce | Bringing Up Baby

Film critic Andrew Sarris once, now famously, described the screwball comedy as a "sex comedy without the sex." In the case of Bringing Up Baby, I say thank the gods for small favors. One can only imagine what sort of leathered and gagged S&M tableau poor David Huxley would have ended up in had the unpredictable and exuberant Susan Vance had full reign to indulge whatever peculiar peccadillo crossed her mind. I'm being literal for the purpose of being humorous, of course, but... the thought did cross my mind as I was watching Howard Hawks' 1938 screwball comedy Bringing Up Baby. Read More.

Film Friday | Weekly Roundup

Good news! Ed Hindson, president of the World Prophetic Ministry, officially assures us Sunday is definitely NOT the end of time. But just in case, I'm spending my last days reading about movies on the interwebs. It's on my bucket list. If you have some time to kill until the rapture check out:

• Thanks to the Classic Movies of 1939 Blogathon and Grand Old Movies, I remembered that this movie exists and I must see it. Like soon. Read GOM's review of The Return of Doctor X, Bogey's sojourn into the horror genre.
• Smart and insightful Silent Volume attended the Mary Pickford event at TIFF as well. Read his take on the lecture and "The New York Hat."
• SoVirtuallyYours gets some love from Bobby O.? Color me jealous. Really, really jealous.
• I finally saw Bringing Up Baby this week. Roger Ebert provides a succinct brief on the critical and commercial failure of the movie at it's release.
• Lars Von Trier gets a lot of attention at Cannes. Makes Kirsten Dunst want to crawl in a hole and die.
• I like movie viewing girls, I like 12 Angry Men, and I like lists. It's kismet!

For the Good of Russia | Rasputin and the Empress (1932)

Here’s the first thing I’ll say about this historical drama: this film is not factually accurate. There was a Russian Royal family known as the Romanovs, there was a confoundingly enigmatic mystic named Rasputin, and everyone did die. That’s roughly where the similarities end. Let’s agree to forgive this film its historical inaccuracies. After all, the movie was released in 1932, a mere 15 years after the October Revolution which destroyed the tsarist monarchy and information trickling out of Russia was sparse at the time. The question of whether the filmmakers even intended historical accuracy is moot because so many facts are skewed in this movie. So let’s leave the history to the historians, and think about this film as a drama. Read More

Mary Pickford, D.W. Griffith, and “The New York Hat” (1912)

I have the remarkable privilege of spending a great deal of my time just a hop away from the TIFF Bell Lightbox in Toronto. (Don’t worry Film Forum… you’ll always have my heart.) Just 3 bucks and a few streetcar stops brings me to one of the more remarkable film venues I’ve ever had the privilege of visiting. The physical space is stunning… not quite a movie palace of yore, but grand nonetheless. Of course, the real draw is the top notch programming. From debuts to special events and lectures, TIFF offers a wealth of movie going pleasures. So it was I found myself at the Bell Lightbox on a rainy Saturday morning for a lecture and screening event, Mary Pickford: From Actress to Icon. Read More

Show Don’t Tell: The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920)

The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, the gold standard example of early German expressionism in film, is just plain weird. Today we call it a “horror” film, but it’s not scary. It is disorienting and certainly creepy, but you won’t jump in your seat while viewing it. But if you care about the genre known as “horror,” then you have to confront Caligari. If you care about film history in general, about “film noir” in particular, or Post WWI German politics, you have to care about Caligari. Wait, what?

Ladies and gentleman, The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari is INFLUENTIAL. Often, this weird little movie is lost in the cacophony of critical extrapolation, exegesis, and anagogy. Read More

The Amazing Dr. Clitterhouse (1938)

The Amazing Dr. Clitterhouse is appropriately named because it is AMAZING! Landing somewhere between a dry Brit comedy and a hardcore gangster movie, the odd-ball gem is hard to categorize. I first saw the movie a few years ago and was delighted when I saw it come up in TCM’s rotation this week. I couldn’t hit record fast enough. I’ll admit that I approached my second viewing with a little trepidation, as often things I thought we’re completely marvelous the first time don’t live up to my expectations the second time. But The Amazing Dr. Clitterhouse did not disappoint. Read More

The Divine Lady - 1929

Thanks to TCM's "Silent Sunday," every Monday afternoon is like Christmas morning. I fire up Tivo to find an alluring, brightly wrapped package and I tear into it. Sometimes, it's an awesome toy, the very one I wanted and sometimes it's a... sweater. Sweaters are just fine, and we all need sweaters, but they don't make for the sexiest presents. Frank Lloyd's The Divine Lady from 1929 is a really nice sweater, well constructed, kind of cozy, and not very exciting.

The plot is a basic and, I'm sure, not too accurate rehashing of the romance between the heroic Lord Horatio Nelson and the somewhat dubious Emma Hamilton. But the plot is a bit szhizophrenic... Read More