Stage Struck!

Fountains at Darling Harbour

A boxset of six Hitchcock films was on sale in HMV for €19. How could I refuse? Granted I already had the two best ones in the box, 'North by Northwest' and 'Strangers on a Train', and three of the others were 'minor' Hitchcock, but so what! I hadn't seen 'Stage Fright' in years. So I watched it tonight.

Yes, minor Hitchcock. There is too much humour and too little suspense for it to be a classic, but two things struck me about it, both linked; the dialogue and the characters. Although the story - an 'innocent' man on the run, girl who loves him tries to establish his innocence - is weak, the dialogue is often very funny, certainly very knowing. Delivered, as it is by an excellent cast (Wyman, Todd, Sim, Dietrich, Wilding, to name a few; I mean, Andre Morell has a bit part!), it often seems very modern, even though it is still very much of the 40s (made in 1950). A lot of credit must go to Hitchcock's wife, Alma Reville, credited with the adaptation. It is a movie of likeable incidents and the little bit of 'Hamlet' with the bloody doll and the boyscout is wonderful.

But the cast, the cast! Alastair Sim, always excellent, is even more excellent than usual. Marlene Dietrich out-Madonna's Madonna. Micheal Wilding, not someone I usually have a lot of time for, has just the right mix of geekiness and professionalism. Richard Todd, the man on the run, has a limited amount of screen time, but makes the most of it, while 'mousey' Jane Wyman holds her own at the middle of all this thespian spendour (contrast Wyman's job with Ingrid Bergman's similar role in 'Spellbound', with only Gregory Peck to share the screen with). All in all, a 'minor' work certainly, but not without its pleasures.

Actually I just read a comment on the movie on IMDB ("Superb..... Hitchcock's most underrated talkie, 23 June 2004" by Author: drednm) and it says it far better than I ever could.