Lies, Lies, Lies

 Stage Fright (1950) – The police suspect Jonathan Cooper of murder.  He turns to Eve, a friend with a crush on him, for help.  She not only hides him, but goes undercover to investigate the truth.

Directed by Alfred Hitchcock            Starring: Jane Wyman, Marlene Dietrich, Alastair Sim, Richard Todd

Why I Liked It-Just enough from all this talent.

This seems like a slam dunk movie on paper.  Hitchcock directs a noir film with his usual dark comedy touch.  Carrying the story is the legendary Dietrich, with Wyman, Sim and a solid supporting cast.  The director has a nice twist at the end.  This ought to wonderful, maybe even great.

At the end, I felt shortchanged.

Not that I didn’t like the movie.  Hitchcock keeps the story moving, the actors are fun to watch and the story twists and turns.  Everyone is lying to everyone else.  Everything you think you know at the start of the movie turns out to be something else.  One thing is true-there’s been a murder.  Jonathan Cooper’s (Todd) affair with star actress Charlotte Inwood (Dietrich) makes him a prime suspect in the murder of her husband.  He says she’s the murderer and has set him up.  Eve (Wyman) is a fellow acting student, and attracted to Cooper,.  With her eccentric father (Sim) they hide Cooper while she goes undercover as Inwood’s stage dresser.  Several unexpected truths are revealed.

There’s so much good stuff in this movie, I’m a little amazed that it left me flat.  While I’ve never understood the Dietrich-as-sex-symbol, there’s no arguing that she has a screen presence like few others.  Wyman is adequate as the more “girl next door” Eve, and Sim is delightful as the dotty father (he would star as Scrooge a year later).  You get the visual Hitchcock style (with an easy to spot cameo), plus a twist ending that was controversial in its day.  It still works today, but is much less “surprising” when revealed.  Sorting through the false leads, the endless lies, and film noir cynicism kept me locked in on the screen.

It just felt like something was lacking when I saw the words “The End”.  Maybe it’s as simple as this-what was still new and unexpected then has become standard to us today.  It’s well done, but is less “astonishing” now.

This director and these actors still make a movie worth your time.

Rating – *** Worth A Look