- My favorite part of Alfred Hitchcock's Stage Fright arrives near the end of the film, just when Eve Gill (Jane Wyman) is about to spring a trap designed to implicate stage legend Charlotte Inwood (Marlene Dietrich) in the murder of her husband. All through the film, Inwood has acted like a perfect prima donna. She calls Eve by three or four different names, none correct, and regularly uses a tone of bland disinterest when addressing the entourage of people who work for her. As if the picture isn't clear enough, Inwood's prime concern while dressing for her late husband's funeral is whether or not she can pull off a lower neckline. That's why it's so surprising when Inwood suddenly gives Eve some extra money and offers to drive her home after a performance. It's the first and only sign we've had that Charlotte Inwood may be a human being, and the effect is rather surprising. Of course, that's right before she's accused of murder.
- To hear Jonathan Cooper (Richard Todd) tell it, Inwood murdered her husband and coerced the starstruck Cooper into recovering a bloody dress from her home. Fleeing the authorities, Cooper seeks out his old friend Eve, who obviously still holds a torch for him, and the two enlist the help of her independently-minded father, Commodore Gill (Alastair Sim). While Cooper stays out of sight, Eve and her father conduct a series of strange investigations into the affairs of Charlotte Inwood. Their unique approach to the problem primarily involves having Eve pose as Inwood's maid while bribing her real maid, the wonderfully misnamed Nellie Good (Kay Walsh). Simultaneously complicating and aiding in their investigation is the rather "ordinary" Inspector Smith (Michael Wilding). While Eve grows increasingly fond of Smith despite his disappointing reticence in discussing the Inwood case, her primary concern is that he doesn't discover her uncredited acting role as Inwood's maid.
- While the maid impostor subplot may be strange, it generates a genuinely interesting set of interactions between Eve, Inwood, and Smith. Stranger and less compelling are the group's plans for tricking Inwood into confessing. The first involves, and I kid you not, having a boy scout bring Inwood a carnival cupie doll in a bloody dress. The second, slightly less disturbing plan involves a hidden microphone in a dressing room, but Inwood simply won't confess. As we eventually discover, she has good reason not to.
- Stage Fright is probably most famous for its controversial twist at the end. It turns out that Cooper's flashback was not as reliable as the audience was led to believe, and that he is apparently some sort of serial killer. While the final scenes are quite suspenseful as a result, we can't help but feel a bit cheated at the way things worked out. Misleading flashbacks can be used to good effect when we get the chance to know the unreliable narrator, as in the recent case of The Usual Suspects. In Stage Fright, however, Cooper is offscreen enough that it is a mostly uninteresting surprise to find out that he is a killer. While most of the movie's characters, particularly the imposing Inwood and malleable Eve, are quite compelling, the real killer in this case turns out to be a bit of a dud.
- I spotted Hitchcock looking at Eve dressed up like a maid.
