Stage Fright [Blu-ray]

Director: Alfred Hitchcock Alfred Hitchcock

Overview

On the lam from the police, Richard Todd takes refuge in the home of his former girlfriend, RADA student Jane Wyman. Todd has been spotted fleeing a murder scene, but he insists that he's innocent. Wyman believes him but knows that the police won't, so she decides to play detective.

Product Details

Release Date:	01/25/2022
UPC:	0883929786831
Original Release:	1950
Rating:	NR
Source:	Warner Archives
Language:	English
Time:	1:50:00
Sales rank:	18,649

Cast & Crew

Performance Credits

Jane Wyman	Eve Gill
Marlene Dietrich	Charlotte Inwood
Michael Wilding	Actor
Richard Todd	Jonathan Cooper
Alastair Sim	Commodore Gill
Kay Walsh	Nellie Goode
Sybil Thorndike	Mrs. Gill
Miles Malleson	Mr. Fortesque
Hector MacGregor	Freddie Williams
Joyce Grenfell	`Lovely Ducks'
Andre Morell	Inspector Byard
Ballard Berkeley	Sergeant Mellish
Patricia Hitchcock	Chubby Bannister,Passerby on Street as Wyman Talks to Herself
Irene Handl	Actor
Arthur Howard	Actor
Everley Gregg	Actor
Cyril Chamberlain	Actor
Helen Goss	Actor
Michael Wilding Sr.	Insp. Wilfred Smith
Jenny Neumann	Actor
Gary Sweet	Actor
Talks to Self	Actor
Leighton Lucas	Composer

Technical Credits

Alma Reville

James Bridie

Ranald MacDougall

Whitfield Cook

Selwyn Jepson

Alfred Hitchcock	Director,Producer
Alma Reville	Screenwriter
James Bridie	Screenwriter
Ranald MacDougall	Screenwriter
Whitfield Cook	Screenwriter
Selwyn Jepson	Screenwriter
Harold King	Sound/Sound Designer

Editorial Reviews

Alfred Hitchcock returns to the well of his favorite subject -- an innocent man framed for a terrible crime -- and puts an intriguing twist on it in this otherwise ordinary thriller. In this case, Richard Todd stars as the mark whose opening flashback reveals how he accidentally took the blame for a murder committed by his treacherous mistress (Marlene Dietrich). This revelation turns out to be the film's biggest mistake since it is a lie -- an interesting twist, but one that should have been detailed in real time rather than in a flashback. Another gaffe is that none of the characters ever appear to be in any real danger. In his interviews with François Truffaut, Hitchcock fully admitted that these errors are the film's biggest undoing in addition to his feeling that Todd's villain was rather weak. Stage Fright's real gem is Jane Wyman who portrays a willowy young actress whose crush on Todd leads her to helping hide him while trying to prove his innocence. Her beguiling turn as the attractive and earnest Eve is taken up a notch when she uses her acting talents pretending to be a madcap replacement maid for Dietrich's mistress. Interestingly, Wyman turned out to be a handful for Hitchcock when she continuously tried to make her character more glamorous to keep up with the sexy Dietrich. Alastair Sim, in a role just prior to his classic turn as Scrooge in A Christmas Carol, is excellent in a small role as Eve's father. "It'll be one woman to another," Wyman's Eve explains to him on a proposed confrontation with Dietrich, to which he comically replies, "An impressive situation at any time." Based on the novel by Selwyn Jepson, Stage Fright is a film that falls somewhere in the middle of Hitchcock's canon. His cameo comes 40 minutes into the picture when he passes Wyman on the street and then turns to stare at her.