Stage Fright is a 1950 Hitchcock crime film starring Jane Wyman, Marlene Dietrich, Michael Wilding, and Richard Todd. Others in the cast include Alastair Sim, Sybil Thorndike, Kay Walsh, Patricia Hitchcock in her movie debut, and Joyce Grenfell in a humorous vignette.

Produced and directed by Alfred Hitchcock, the story was adapted for the screen by Whitfield Cook, Ranald MacDougall, and Alma Reville, with additional dialogue by James Bridie, based on the novel Man Running by Selwyn Jepson.

Though Hitchcock had lived and worked in Hollywood since 1939, this mystery/thriller, which is mixed with humor, was filmed on location in London. The only members of the cast who are not British are the two top billed stars, Wyman and Dietrich.

Featured is an original Cole Porter song, The Laziest Gal In Town performed by Dietrich in a sultry fashion. Costumes were designed by Christian Dior.

Stage Fright garnered some adverse publicity upon its initial release due to the "lying flashback" which is seen at the beginning of the film. However, some film critics, including those of Cahiers du Cinema, see the flashback as simply being an illustration of one person's version of the events: the events as recounted by the character whose voice-over we hear, which was presumably Hitchcock's intention.

The film has a few extra-long takes, reminiscent of those that Hitchcock used in Rope (1948) and Under Capricorn (1949).

Drama student Eve Gill (Wyman), receives a call from a friend, actor Jonathan Cooper (Todd), and is asked to come over and pick him up. In her car, the frantic Jonathan, who is in the cast of a West End musical starring a flamboyant stage actress/singer, Charlotte Inwood (Dietrich), explains that he and Charlotte are secret lovers and that he is now wanted by the police who suspect him of murdering her husband. He recounts in a flashback that Charlotte was actually the murderer; that she was wearing a blood stained dress he helped her dispose of; that he was seen leaving the scene of the crime and is sure to be charged and convicted.

Eve has long had a crush on Jonathan, but accepts that he is not interested in her romantically. She offers to hide him, with the help of her (at first) reluctant father, Commodore Gill (Sim), and decides to investigate for herself. She bribes Charlotte's shrewd theatre maid and dresser, Nellie Goode (Walsh), to pretend she is ill. Eve then utilizes her acting skills to affect the false identity and accent of a Cockney maid, claiming to be Nellie's cousin, Doris, and takes the temporary job of replacing "her cousin" in order to prove Jonathan's innocence.

When she meets the policeman in charge of the case, Detective-Inspector Wilfred Smith (Wilding), who does not know that she is working as Charlotte's maid, Doris, they gradually begin falling in love. While working for Charlotte and trying to find evidence showing she committed the crime and is framing Jonathan, she attempts to get Smith to reveal information about the progress of the case at Scotland Yard. As Smith is also keeping an eye on Charlotte, there is a great chance that something will go wrong.

Eve is able to gain the confidence of Charlotte, who goes about business as usual. But the mystery surrounding the murder becomes more confusing and complex as she searches for some evidence. Her relationship with Smith becomes a little strained. She wants to tell him that she is doubling as Doris, but the timing never seems right.

There is a scene at a garden party where Charlotte is singing on stage in a large tent that ends with Commodore Gill getting a little boy to take a doll wearing a dress stained with blood, his own, up to her and she faints. Eve is there as herself and is hesitant to go and assist Charlotte, as Smith will learn of her deception. The movie ends at the closed theatre. The final scenes have Eve come out of character and confront the selfish and ruthless Charlotte in her dressing room as loudspeakers reveal all that is said to Detective-Inspector Smith and his men; Jonathan having "stage fright" when he comes in and sees the police then flees; Eve in breathless peril when she is with the real murderer alone.

In suspense films characters frequently deceive one another. But can the camera tell a lie? This is one of the questions that Hitchcock takes up in Stage Fright (1950), and his answer has puzzled, infuriated, and delighted audiences ever since its initial release. Stage Fright is one of only two films Hitchcock made in Great Britain after he moved to America in 1940 (the other is Frenzy, his late masterpiece). It is also his only picture to star Marlene Dietrich, whose character's allegiances are even more ambiguous than usual.

Years after making Stage Fright, Hitchcock claimed that because the villains were just as frightened as the heroes, the film did not carry the requisite quota of menace. But it has received a good deal of attention in recent years and is worth a fresh look. The director did admit that he was proud of the movie's most astounding plot twist, though no commercial filmmaker since has been bold enough to let the camera lie so eloquently. --Raphael Shargel

Cast

Jane Wyman as Eve Gill

Marlene Dietrich as Charlotte Inwood

Michael Wilding as Det. Insp. Wilfred 'Ordinary' Smith

Richard Todd as Jonathan Cooper

Alastair Sim as Commodore Gill (as Alistair Sim)

Sybil Thorndike as Mrs. Gill

Kay Walsh as Nellie Goode

Miles Malleson as Mr. Fortesque

Hector MacGregor as Freddie Williams

Joyce Grenfell as Lovely Ducks

André Morell as Inspector Byard

Patricia Hitchcock as Chubby Bannister

Ballard Berkeley as Sgt. Mellish

Alfie Bass as Stage Hand With Microphone

Cyril Chamberlain as Sgt. Loomis

Petra Davies as RADA girl

Susanne Gibbs as Girl

Helen Goss as Miss Tibbet

Everley Gregg as Charlotte Innwood's Dressmaker.

Irene Handl as Miss Mason, Gill's Maid

Alfred Hitchcock as Man Staring at Eve on Street

Arthur Howard as Man

Lionel Jeffries as RADA student