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Stage Fright Movie Review

Stage Fright is a 1950 noir film directed by Alfred Hitchcock and starring Jane Wyman and Marlene Dietrich. This is one of the director’s weaker, but interesting films.

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“He was an abominable man.

Why do women marry abominable men?“

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Jonathan is wanted for killing the husband of his mistress, a famous singer. His friend Eve decides to help him when he insists that he’s innocent. For this, she goes to work as a maid for the singer. In terms of storytelling overall, the movie has an interesting hook, most of it was well executed for thrills and the mystery elements were particularly intriguing.

But in terms of the tone itself, the movie is a strange mess as it is dramatic, but also mildly comedic at times, and that uneasy mood permeates the entire viewing experience. The dialogue is excellent, but overly abundant, and one certainly could wonder how amazing this noir feature could have been had Hitchcock focused more on thrills than dialogue.

Still, this is one of his rare features to be a genuine noir of its period, which is fascinating in and of itself. Technically, there is nothing truly incredible here, but admittedly everything is very well done. Hitchcock’s direction is far from his best, though it’s still quite good. The cinematography and score are both solid and the movie has some very elaborately and intriguingly composed shots, but again more could have been done with this material.

The novel was obviously not all that great, thus the movie suffered as a result. Still, the stage setting worked and the actors all did a great job, but obviously the standouts were Jane Wyman and Marlene Dietrich. Wyman is excellent in such a good main role, and she is definitely one of the most underrated heroines from Hitchcock movies.

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But Stage Fright is undoubtedly at its best when showcasing Marlene Dietrich in all of her glory. She has never played such a diva of a character, and she killed it. She shines, she is luminous and she lights up the screen with so much star quality and charisma whenever she is on screen. Her being in a Hitchcock movie is worth checking out alone.

Stage Fright has a very uneasy tone, overly abundant dialogue and it’s far from Hitchcock’s best works technically and plotwise. Still, it’s quite solid, strange and memorable in some of its suspenseful moments. The acting was the highlight. Jane Wyman was excellent in the heroine role, but it is Marlene Dietrich who stole the show playing this diva character full of charisma and evident star presence.

My Rating – 3.5