Stage Fright (1950)

Stage Fright (1950)

In director Alfred Hitchcock's often-forgotten, British film-noirish crime thriller and black comedy - the story of murder and intrigue (with a love triangle) was based on mystery writer Selwyn Jepson's novel Man Running, originally published in serial form in Collier's Magazine in 1947 before being published in hard-cover in 1948. It was adapted by Alma Reville (Hitchcock) and James Bridie with a screenplay by Whitfield Cook.

Hollywood star Jane Wyman was cast as the lead character, just off her Best Actress Oscar win for Johnny Belinda (1948) . The only other non-British member of the main cast was Marlene Dietrich playing a pivotal role as the film's seductive and glamorous femme fatale chanteuse - an antagonist who was accused of the murder of her husband. Unfortunately, the film was another in a string of box-office flops for Hitchcock.

The story's plot (with the theme of stage acting) involved impersonations, charades, multiple-disguises (role plays and transformed identity changes), and characters who were coldly calculating, dishonest and deceptive and hiding their true selves to varying degrees. The various roles played by the characters included a 'wronged' fugitive, a grieving widow, a nosy journalist-reporter, a replacement Cockney dresser-maid, and more. The film's MacGuffin was an ubiquitous blood-stained dress.

The Production Code censors were concerned about Marlene Dietrich's performance of Cole Porter's tune The Laziest Gal in Town and changes were made to its suggestive lyrics: ("It's not 'cause I wouldn't, It's not 'cause I shouldn't, And, you know, it's not 'cause I couldn't, It's simply because I'm the laziest gal in town"); they modified the words: "Lord knows" to "you know," and prohibited views of Dietrich's figure and suggestive body movements.

• behind the opening title credits, a steel fire safety 'stage curtain' slowly rose up - an important plot book-end - to reveal a high-angled view of a busy London street (with landmarks, including St. Paul's Cathedral) rather than a stage
• in the opening scene set in London, aspiring actress Eve Gill (Jane Wyman) and her panicked long-time student friend Jonathan Cooper (Richard Todd) fled from the police in her sports-car; during the frantic drive, he told her why he was a 'wronged man' on the run - it involved his much-older, secret mistress-lover -- flamboyant stage actress/singer Charlotte Inwood (Marlene Dietrich) who he claimed was "in a jam"
• via a flashback (without a telltale voice-over), Jonathan presented his discovery of a crime; a few hours earlier, Charlotte had come to his London apartment - wearing a blood-stained dress - to confess to the murder of her "vile," "abominable" and abusive husband Mr. Inwood during a quarrel in their bedroom: (Charlotte: "I think he's dead. I'm sure he's dead. I didn't mean it")
  • [Note: This film broke one of the essential cinematic truths - that flashbacks always presented true facts. SPOILER: The dishonest and deceitful flashback contained both half-truths and falsehoods. There was actually a reversal of roles - Jonathan was the murderer while Charlotte was his accomplice.]

• in his flashbacked account, Jonathan urged Charlotte to appear on stage in London as scheduled that evening "as if nothing had happened"; he suggested that she tell the authorities: "You haven't been home at all"; he agreed to help Charlotte after she claimed that she loved him (with a kiss), by going over to her home with a key to get her an alternate clean blue dress to change into; while there in the upper-floor bedroom, Jonathan noticed a fire-place poker (the murder weapon) and the prone body slumped on the floor; he replaced the poker to its rightful place, took a dress from her closet, and broke a glass pane of a window in the study (and threw papers around from the husband's desk) to make the crime scene look as if it was a forced-entry burglary that went wrong
• unexpectedly, he was forced to flee when he heard a scream coming from Charlotte's lower-class Cockney maid/dresser Nellie Goode (Kay Walsh) who had just discovered the body; she observed him as he scurried down the stairs from the murder scene (with the dress) to escape out the front door; Jonathan returned to give Charlotte the replacement dress - she encouraged him to go into hiding, now that he was a prime suspect; he felt that he had become closer to her: "I don't care what happens to me. Your job is to try to forget everything. Let me do the worrying. I'll find a way. Then we'll start again, won't we, you and I? No more stealth and cheating and lying"; he urged her to not worry - and continue acting: ("Well, you mustn't. You're an actress. You're playing a part"); he promised to get rid of her blood-stained dress, and for now, they agreed to not be seen together
• the flashback continued as the worried Jonathan (in a double-exposed image) imagined that Nellie had notified the police who came to investigate the crime scene; after not answering a phone call (presumably from the police), Jonathan phoned Eve's house, and learned from her estranged mother Mrs. Gill (Sybil Thorndike) that as a drama student at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA) in London, she was rehearsing on the stage; when two police officers (Gerald Case and Robert Cawdron) came to his door to ask questions, to evade them, he fled (with the bloody dress hidden under his coat) to his car parked outside; as the police attempted to smash his windows, he humorously pointed to the window insignia ("SAFETY GLASS")
• at the Academy; Jonathan located Eve on stage and joined the play-acting as he whispered to her:
  • "The police are after me. Do you see them?...They think I killed a man....Can you hide me on your father's boat?"
• believing without any doubt that Jonathan was innocent, she joined him to escape out the stage door, and hide him by driving him to her father's boathouse on the coast, two hours from the city; the flashback returned to the opening scene
• once they arrived at the coast, her eccentric, accordian-playing, inquisitive father Commodore Gill (Alastair Sim) agreed to harbor the suspected murderer Jonathan; Eve admitted she was jealous of his lover Charlotte, and told her father: "I'm in love with him"; she suggested helping Jonathan by taking him across the Channel to the Irish coast
  • [Note: Notice the three X's stitched across the crotch-region of Eve's dress!]
• as they talked, and while the exhausted Jonathan was sleeping, the sleuthing Commodore noticed that the blood splatter on Charlotte's dress had been smeared on deliberately rather than being in a random pattern; he and Eve surmised that Jonathan had possibly been framed by his actress-lover Charlotte, and that they could prove his innocence by showing it to the police: ("This dress is a clue, my dear, a very important clue"); when he awakened, Jonathan dismissed their speculations: ("You're trying to turn me against Charlotte, but you can't"), and angrily destroyed the dress by burning it in the fireplace - although it was the most useful piece of evidence; the question then arose - was he actually involved in the murder, and covering up his complicity?

• amateur-sleuth Eve was determined to help her 'boyfriend' and save him, because she felt he could "do nothing for himself" and was "hopelessly in love with that woman"; to investigate the case, Eve proposed to prove Jonathan was innocent by directly confronting Charlotte:
  • "I'll tell her we know about the dress and how the bloodstain got there and we know every move of her game. I'll make her talk. It'll be one woman to another...She'll give herself away."
• Eve's father wisely advised about not getting too directly involved with Charlotte: "She's a desperate woman, a dangerous woman. She won't give herself away. You'd be giving her another alternative...She might murder you"; in the least, she could charge Eve with "concealing a fugitive from justice"; he told her to pursue her melodramatic urges safely back on the stage:
  • "Go back to your Academy and practice your soul-shaking antics in surroundings where they can't do any harm."
• Eve drove back to London the next morning, and noticed a large crowd with police gathered outside Charlotte Inwood's apartment; she followed one of the investigating police officers to the nearby Shepherd's pub where she ordered a brandy; to draw his attention, she put on an 'act' of being faint, sick and distressed; after dismissing help offered by oversolicitous, pushy, and bespectacled Mr. Fortesque (Miles Malleson) in the pub, she was able to coax the handsome Inwood homicide investigator Detective Inspector Wilfred O. Smith (Michael Wilding) to sit with her in a booth; obviously interested in picking her up, he asked if she was "allergic to strange men," and she replied:
  • "I love strange men -- I mean, I'm very fond of them"
• the two overheard a conversation at the bar about how the Winwood's Butler had reported that the murder victim's head had been bashed in so forcefully that his false teeth sailed across the room; Eve introduced herself as an "overdramatic" actress, and then qualified her statement about how she was only a novice: "I'm only a beginner, really. That is, I've only played one part in public...It was in the church hall. I played the fourth deadly sin... I was pretty deadly"; they heard further rumors from another conversation nearby that Jonathan Cooper had murdered Charlotte's husband; Inspector Smith gave his opinion of actors:
  • "Oh, it's the old story - 'Is not the actor the man with a heart?' all over again"
• Smith and Eve observed as Charlotte's frumpy theatre maid/dresser Nellie Goode (Kay Walsh) entered the pub to complain to Miss Tippett (Helen Goss) at the bar about being questioned all morning long by the police and reporters about her employer and the murder case; however, she considered herself a celebrity for being the sole witness, who would soon be "on the make" to capitalize on her newfound notoriety:
  • "I'll be a star witness at that trial, and my story ought to be worth something."
• as the two left the pub, Smith (without having divulged anything about the murder case to Eve) admitted to her that he had been play-acting and had slyly manuevered to get to know her: ("It isn't really kindness at all. I mean, I'm afraid I maneuvered it"); after driving her to her home, he revealed he knew something about her personal background before formally introducing himself: "My name is Smith" - she asked: "Just ordinary Smith?"; she faked not knowing about his profession when he presented his card to her, and queried: "A detective?"; he invited himself to have tea with Eve and her mother Mrs. Gill the following afternoon
• meanwhile, Eve resumed her act as a newspaper reporter back at the pub, and convinced Nellie Goode - with a monetary bribe - to tell Charlotte that she was ill and to introduce her as her cousin "Doris Tinsdale" as her temporary replacement for a few days; Eve would now impersonate "Doris" and start working for Charlotte as her theatre dresser, as Nellie instructed: "All you've gotta do is put on some of your old clothes and make yourself look common like me"; she agreed to the deal, even though Nellie suspected that Eve was working for the police: "I think you're snooping for the police"

• after adopting her disguise as a frumpy middle-aged woman named "Doris Tinsdale" with thick glasses, Eve walked down the street rehearsing to herself: "I'm Doris Tinsdale. I'm from Nellie" (with director Hitchcock's cameo); in the front entrance of the Inwood residence during her masquerade, Eve (as "Doris") had to rush upstairs to hide from two detectives (including Detective Smith) who also arrived at the front door; in Charlotte's bedroom, she met Charlotte's producer-manager Freddie Williams (Hector MacGregor); despite her widowed status, Freddie was overheard encouraging Charlotte to continue performing her West End musical show, and not allow her understudy to take her place: ("It's you they want to see")
• when Eve first met the widowed Charlotte in her bedroom, she immediately realized that she had no remorse for her husband's death; she was preening in a black veiled dress in front of a mirror with her dressmaker (Everley Gregg): ("This is very nice if you can call mourning, nice. But, uh, isn't there some way we could, eh, let it plunge a little in front? I suppose not...If we could only work in a little color somewhere. Oh, well")

• they were interrupted by Charlotte's butler Groves (Arthur Howard) reporting that Inspector Byard (André Morell) and Inspector Smith were there to question Charlotte; [Note: for the remainder of the film, Charlotte would repeatedly mis-name "Doris" - she first called her Phyllis, and then Elsie and Mavis]; the actress insisted to Freddie that she would not disappoint her "loyal public" and would appear on stage that evening; before the two detectives entered to question her, the conniving Charlotte told Freddie her general opinion of detectives: ("They are only policemen with smaller feet")
• "Doris" and Freddie listened from the next-door room as the two detectives questioned Charlotte, as she reclined back on her divan (before the fireplace where the crime had occurred); she evasively stated that Jonathan Cooper had made the murder of her husband look like a robbery; she claimed that she had broken up with Jonathan a week before her husband's murder because he was so "madly infatuated" with her; Eve was relieved that Detective Smith hadn't come face-to-face with her as a disguised "Doris" during his visit; after the detectives left, it was revealed that Charlotte was involved in an affair with Freddie, and jealousy was involved in the killing of Charlotte's husband; Freddie was worried: "If the truth comes out, it would break you. I can't have that"
• only moments later, Eve was scheduled to meet with Detective Smith for tea at her mother's home in London; with Eve arriving late, Mrs. Gill remarked about Smith's name: "Smith. The name seems familiar, somehow"; during the courtship visit, Eve's father the Commodore also showed up, and kept dropping subtle hints that "Jonnie" had run away from the seaside house - he referred to "Jonnie" as a stray dog; Eve encouraged Smith as a musician to play the piano, while the Detective hinted that he sometimes handled brandy smuggling cases - causing worry for Mrs. Gill who had just been gifted a bottle of brandy from the Commodore; as Eve rushed off to attend to Charlotte, she lied that she had to return to the Academy; she whispered to her father: "Meet me at the stage door"
• backstage, during Charlotte's evening performance at the Inwood Theatre, the Commodore complimented Eve on her "very good show" (disguise), but bemoaned the fact that she didn't have an audience to appreciate her; Eve retorted: "But you're my audience! I wish you'd give me a little applause now and then"; between sets, Eve (as "Doris") told Charlotte that her father (visiting her backstage) was worried for her safety, especially if the killer ("man on the run") might show up; Charlotte reassured her: "It's the scene of the crime the murderer returns to, not the theater"
• Charlotte's next musical number was ♪ "The Laziest Gal in Town" ♪ - ("It's not 'cause I wouldn't, it's not 'cause I shouldn't, and you know, it's not 'cause I couldn't, it's simply because I'm the laziest gal in town") [Note: Dietrich's song and performance was spoofed by Madeline Kahn's infamous number "I'm Tired" in Blazing Saddles (1974).]

• the Commodore's instincts proved true - during her number, the hunted fugitive Jonathan snuck into the theatre and secretly came to Charlotte's dressing room; she told him it was a terrible risk for him to come, and hugged him; he felt that they needed to come up with "a cast-iron story and stick to it"; she urged him to return to his hiding place, and await Freddie's help to get him out of the country, and that she would eventually join him in South America or somewhere "as soon as all of this has blown over"; she firmly told him that she wouldn't give up her stage-show career for him, although she complimented him on being dedicated to her:
  • "Taking all the trouble to protect my reputation, covering up the accident, destroying that dreadful dress with the bloodstain on it --- "
• sensing that Charlotte didn't really love him, he corrected her by lying that he still had the bloodstained dress, and would use it as a bargaining chip over her:
  • "So long as I have that dress, I'm the one who decides how long this show will run -- and everything else. Do you understand?"
• as Freddie and Detective Sgt. Loomis (Cyril Chamberlain) searched backstage for Jonathan, Eve (as "Doris") alerted him - with a loud voice and a faked fainting spell - to escape from Charlotte's dressing room through a bathroom window; Eve and her father conspired to plan how they could have Inspector Smith "see" how Charlotte was involved in the murder scheme and her protectiveness of Jonathan; Eve would invite Smith to join her to attend the upcoming Theatrical Garden Party
• upon their return that evening to the Gill's London residence, they discovered that Jonathan had retreated there and was having a pleasant conversation with the oblivious Mrs. Gill; they decided to offer Jonathan -- or Robinson ("a fugitive from justice...wanted for murder") a place to stay for overnight; Jonathan privately admitted to Eve that he was grateful that Charlotte's maid had saved him; he confided to Eve that he never should have trusted Charlotte, and was now reliant solely on Eve:
  • "I don't deserve it, but I need you. I need you more than ever."
• the next day, Inspector Smith and Eve shared a ride in the back of a taxi on their way to the Theatrical Garden Party at the Roehampton Sports Club in London; during their conversation as they discussed "shop" (the characters of Cooper and Charlotte), Eve hinted her feeling about how Charlotte was "cold and calculating" by going straight from her husband's funeral to the garden party: ("Maybe she had something to do with her husband's death?"); the two were starting to fall in love with each other, and eventually came close enough to each other for a kiss
• at the garden party, Eve excused herself from Smith in order to speak to Nellie Goode; Inspector Smith thought that Eve was playing coy with him: ("Every time I'm beginning to think I know what color your eyes are, you disappear"); the greedy Nellie confronted the deceptive Eve about how she wasn't a reporter, and extorted her into paying her blackmail money to keep her from informing Charlotte about Eve's "Doris Tinsdale" disguise; Eve phoned her father to bring an additional £ 20 pounds in cash to pay off Nellie
• Freddie Williams spotted Eve in the crowd (thinking she was "Doris") and ordered her to help Charlotte, who was scheduled to sing on stage in her tent at the Garden Party; after paying off Nellie's "shady transaction," Commodore Gill was determined to trick Charlotte into confessing to the crime - and was inspired after envisioning two blood-stained dresses; he negotiated with the shooting gallery's arcade proprietor "Lovely Ducks" (Joyce Grenfell), who shouted out: "Now, then, who's going to shoot lovely ducks?", to acquire one of her prizes - a doll with a white-dress

• during Charlotte's stage performance, the Commodore instructed a small boy to carry the white-dressed doll wearing a bloodstained dress (with his own blood) onto the stage as Charlotte sang Édith Piaf's signature song "La Vie en Rose"; upset by the incident, Charlotte experienced 'stage fright' and half-collapsed, and "Doris" was summoned by Freddie to help her on-stage - tipping off Inspector Smith to her alter-ego; the ploy didn't work and actually backfired - it didn't induce a confession from Charlotte for Inspector Smith to witness; instead, Inspector Smith sensed Eve's manipulations

• in the next scene set in Mrs. Gill's residence in London, the Commodore and Eve had fled there to avoid Inspector Smith, but they expected him to arrive with his "posse" at any moment to arrest them; Jonathan was still hiding out there, and Eve was adamant in her belief that he was innocent; he told her:
  • "I won't give up. There must be a way to get at Charlotte"
• Eve privately spoke to a frustrated Inspector Smith, and described how - as Charlotte's maid "Doris," she had overheard Jonathan in Charlotte's dressing room the night before mention a blood-stained dress that belonged to her - and it made Charlotte "afraid"; Smith accused Eve of helping Jonathan to evade Sgt. Loomis - with another fainting spell - and escape through the dressing room's bathroom window; Eve explained how she was no longer in love with Jonathan, but was helping him in the belief that he was an "innocent man"; when the Inspector accused Eve of "infernal amateur meddling," Eve vowed that she wasn't "acting" in the taxi and that she truly loved him, but at the garden party, she had been sidetracked by her father's "idea about a bloodstained doll"; she assured Smith:
  • "I wanted to tell you all about it. Please believe me"
• the Commodore and Mrs. Gill joined them, and Eve's father suggested to Inspector Smith another of his unorthodox ideas - Eve (as "Doris") would trick Charlotte and set her up for a public confession; the Commodore vouched for his daughter: "She's a very good actress, a very good actress indeed"; although skeptical when told that a "blood-stained dress" didn't exactly exist, Inspector Smith indirectly implied that he might assent to his idea, and the Commodore was pleased:
  • "It's alright...He's trying to save his face...He'll let us do it"
• after the evening's performance at the Inwood Theatre, one of the backstage rooms was equipped with a hidden microphone so Inspector Smith and his men could listen to Charlotte's 'confession' via broadcast over speakers; on her last day impersonating dresser-maid "Doris," Eve confided with Charlotte that that she had her bloodstained dress; at first, Charlotte denied everything: "I know nothing about a blood-stained dress," and accused Eve of blackmail; Eve encouraged Charlotte to call the police on her, and admitted that she had only been pretending to be a maid; Eve asked several crucial questions:
  • Why was the bloodstain smeared on the dress?
  • Why were you so frightened when Jonathan told you he hadn't destroyed the dress?
• as expected, Charlotte admitted that some blood had splashed onto her dress during her husband's murder, but asserted that Jonathan had actually committed the murder with a fireplace poker: ("I had nothing to do with it. Jonathan wanted my name kept out of it"); however, she confessed that she was present in the room to witness the homicide, making her an accessory to murder; and then, Charlotte offered Eve 10,000ドル pounds to keep quiet about her:
  • "I'll give you anything if you keep me out of this. Anything,"
• Eve had tears in her eyes after Charlotte's confession, but her father silently applauded her for her performance; meanwhile, as Charlotte was guarded by Sergeant Mellish (Ballard Berkeley), Charlotte realized that her conversation with Eve had been broadcast to the detectives: ("So they've heard everything I said, hmm?"), and that she would be charged as an accessory to murder
• just after the confession, Jonathan was brought to the theatre by the police (who had apprehended him at the Gill's house), but he escaped when Eve became hysterical ("What have they done to you? Why have you arrested him?"), and he hid in a basement stairwell where Eve found him
• when the Commodore asked Inspector Smith to confirm if Jonathan was really involved, Smith affirmed that Jonathan had indeed killed Charlotte's husband; the Inspector noted that Jonathan, with a strong raging temper, had killed a girl before, though he was released on a plea deal of self-defense; Smith was worried that Eve, who was with Jonathan, was in great danger
• Eve was seen hiding below the stage in a carriage-prop with Jonathan; she told him that Charlotte had confessed and pinned the murder on him; Jonathan told how he had been nabbed by Smith outside the Gill's London residence; he also admitted that Charlotte had goaded him into killing her husband to "leave the coast clear" so that she could be available to marry Freddie; he also explained that he had a history of an uncontrollable temper, and killed a girl ("little fool") who had enraged him and threatened him with a gun; he said that the original flashbacked story that he had told her was mostly a lie, and he was the one who had smeared extra blood onto the dress to make it more believable that Charlotte was the guilty one
• Eve urged Jonathan ("a sick man") to surrender, plead insanity, and get help to avoid being sentenced to hang; but then Jonathan frighteningly proposed to kill Eve to make it even more convincing that he was insane to avoid punishment:
  • "There's nothing wrong with my mind. Nobody can prove that there is, unless, unless I do it a third time, with no reason whatever. That would be a clear case of insanity, wouldn't it?"
• then, in her most credible acting role, Eve took his hands into hers, and was able to calmly, convincingly (and deceitfully) suggest that she would help him to escape to her father's boat; Eve pretended to help him to escape through the orchestra pit, but then she led him into a trap - she locked him into the pit and screamed to alert the police

• Jonathan climbed up out of the pit onto the stage, as police rushed towards him and surrounded him; in the confusion, a policeman yelled out to a stagehand: "Drop the iron curtain and cut him off" to block Jonathan's exit - it was a foreshadowing of Jonathan's literal death; he was accidentally cut in half and killed (off-screen) when an unnamed stagehand dropped a theatre fire safety curtain onto him; the curtain lowering was a perfect book-end to the opening scene
• the film concluded with Eve and Smith walking away together