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Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated) Binding: VHS Tape EAN: 9780790742410 Format: Black & White, Closed-captioned, Original recording reissued, NTSC ISBN: 0790742411 Label: Warner Home Video Manufacturer: Warner Home Video Number Of Items: 1 Publisher: Warner Home Video Release Date: July 27, 1999 Running Time: 110 minutes Sales Rank: 32445 Studio: Warner Home Video Theatrical Release Date: April 15, 1950
Amazon.com: 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
Customer Reviews
Average Rating:
Rating: - Murder Makes a Curtain Call
Jonathan Cooper (Richard Todd) is in trouble. The police think he murdered the husband of famous actress Charlotte Inwood (Marlene Dietrich). And so he does the only thing he can think to do, run to Eve Gill (Jane Wyman) for help. Eve has a bit of a crush on Jonathan, so she quickly spirits him out of town and puts him in hiding.
Befriending Detective Inspector Wilfred Smith (Michael Wilding), Eve learns that the police aren't even looking for another suspect, so she goes undercover as Charlotte's new maid to try to prove the actress killed her own husband. Can she keep up her ... Read More
Rating: - Interesting But Extremely Uneven
In the late 1940s and early 1950s Alfred Hichcock went through what his supporters refer to as "a transitional stage" and what his critics call "a few years when he turned out one stinker after another." 1950 he released the film STAGE FRIGHT--and both audiences and critics of the day were greatly ticked off about it.
STAGE FRIGHT is often described as "significant" because it was the first mainstream film to break the screen convention that neither director nor camera could actively lie to the audience--mislead, certainly, but not flatly lie, and not only does this occur in STAGE ... Read More
Rating: - All The World Is A Stage
I truly think this is one of Hitchcock's great over-looked films. Many fine performances lift this film up over the false turn taken early in the movie. Hitchcock himself wasn't too sure if he did the right thing with his plot twist, or if he made all the characters too afraid of what may happen to themselves to make the suspense, well, suspenseful enough. That said, I think he really needn't have worried. With a perfect cast, the film has survived well, and is getting new attention today as a well-done "whoREALLYdunit?" I know Jane Wyman is billed as the star of the show, but really Marlene Dietrich ... Read More
Rating: - Fun and suspenseful--but is it fair?
Jane Wyman and Marlene Dietrich and Alfred Hitchcock?! Who can resist?? I certainly couldn't when I stumbled upon this movie at the library and checked it out based on star power alone.
I certainly wouldn't have chosen it based on its tag line: "Hands that applaud can also kill!" That certainly set me up to expect a cheesy, B-grade thriller.
Fortunately, the movie was much better than the publicity department's promo writing!
The cast is superior, the story alternately humorous and suspenseful...all with HItchcock's trademark cinematographic touches. Wyman is both ... Read More
Rating: - Jane Wyman was an Actress, Capital A
Watching Jane Wyman, who didn't fit the usual Hitchcock profile, work her way through this movie is great. Alongside Marlena Dietrich who had no bad profile and playing it sometimes as low born, it's a performance worth watching. There's a twist in a twist and controversy over Hitch's ideas regarding "seen through the eyes of...". Well, you have to see it to understand I won't give the twists and turns of plot away. It's a great little film. Buy it!
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