“HITCH, THE UNRELIABLE NARRATOR”

By Raymond Benson

The decade of the 1950s is generally considered to be director Alfred Hitchcock’s most glorious period, stocked with some of his acknowledged masterpieces of cinema (Strangers on a Train, Rear Window, Vertigo, North by Northwest, etc.). Those ten years didn’t begin so promisingly, though.

In the late 1940s, Hitchcock had finally broken away from the smothering contract he had under producer David O. Selznick, and he had set out with a partner to form his own production company, Transatlantic. The company made two box office losers—Rope (1948, a failure despite being quite a good movie), and Under Capricorn (1949, no question one of the filmmaker’s weakest pictures). Transatlantic bombed, but Hitchcock continued to work with Warner Brothers, the studio that had distributed these two titles.

Stage Fright was made at Elstree Studios in England and employed an all British crew and cast except for the two female leads, Jane Wyman (under contract at Warners) and veteran star Marlene Dietrich. The male leads were filled by reliable Michael Wilding (who had been in Under Capricorn) and Richard Todd. Stealing the movie in a supporting role, however, is Alastair Sim, the great comic actor who was very popular at the time. Oddly, Sim’s first name is misspelled as “Alistair” in the opening and closing credits of the film!

Eve (Wyman) is a budding young actress, a student at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, whose friend, Jonathan (Todd) has found himself in a pickle. Eve is sweet on Jonathan, although the relationship is mostly platonic, for Jonathan is in a relationship with the flamboyant star of the stage, Charlotte Inwood (Dietrich). The problem there is that Charlotte is married… until her husband is lying dead on the floor of their house, allegedly killed by Charlotte herself. Jonathan has helped her cover up the crime, but he believes he was seen by Charlotte’s housekeeper, Nellie (Kay Walsh). Jonathan, now the prime suspect, gets Eve to hide him from the police, so Eve enlists her father, the “Commander” (Sim) to help. Despite the Commander’s doubts as to what really happened, he dutifully works with his daughter and Jonathan to avoid suspicion from Detective Smith (Wilding). As the plot unfolds, Eve decides to do some investigating herself and manages to bribe Nellie to go away for a while, and Eve takes her place as Charlotte’s new Cockney housekeeper, “Doris.” Things get complicated when Eve begins to fall for Detective Smith (and he for her). Eventually, of course, the truth is discovered and the real killer is pursued through a theatre building in grand Hitchcock style.

When Stage Fright was first released, it received some criticism because the film begins with a flashback narrated by Jonathan, explaining what happened at Charlotte’s house with footage that “re-enacts” the crime. It’s not a spoiler to say that this flashback turns out to be untrue. Hitchcock deliberately lets us believe events occurred, when they really didn’t. Audiences and critics at the time felt this was something of a cheat. However, this is a perfect example of a trend that has cropped up in film and mystery novels quite often in the last twenty years—the “unreliable narrator.” Is Stage Fright the first instance in which the unreliable narrator device was used in cinema? Perhaps not, but in 1950, it was perceived as new and unsettling. Now, this device is fairly commonplace. It just goes to show how Hitchcock really was ahead of his time!

That said, Stage Fright is only middle-tier Hitchcock. It never reaches the highs of the later masterpieces of the 50s mentioned earlier. The plot is rather unbelievable, especially when Eve pretends to be the Cockney maid and becomes a sleuth on her own. Wyman is fine in the role, but one questions her common sense in sticking with Jonathan and his legal problems. The great Marlene Dietrich performs exactly how one would expect… as the great Marlene Dietrich. She exudes a deliciously sinister subtext to her actions, but we can see right through it from the beginning. Richard Todd is never believable as an innocent man, and this is a stickler. However, Alastair Sim is such a delight as Eve’s crafty father that the movie is worth a watch just for him. Even weak Hitchcock can be good fun.

Warner Archive’s new Blu-ray release is a port-over from their previous DVD edition from several years ago. The feature film looks marvelous in glorious black and white high definition, and the London and English countryside locations are a treat. The supplement “making of” documentary is also ported over from the DVD release, along with the theatrical trailer.

Stage Fright is for fans of Alfred Hitchcock, Jane Wyman or Marlene Dietrich, and especially Alastair Sim.

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