At the time of the release of Stage Fright, Hitchcock had been firmly entrenched in Hollywood for ten years. However, he still used his homeland as a setting for several of his American produced films, particularly in his early Hollywood days. Rebecca (1940), Foreign Corespondent (1940), and Suspicion (1941) are all set in the familiar landscapes of Hitchcocks's native England. However, once he became comfortable with American films, Hitchcock only returned once to England as a setting between 1941 (Suspicion) and Stage Fright, with the little known film The Paradine Case (1947).
Looking back, it's clear Stage Fright had to be set in England, it just wouldn't have worked anywhere else. Based on Selwyn Jepson's short story "The Man Running" Hitchcock appears to return to many of the common tropes found in his earlier British films: the plucky young heroine (here played by Jane Wyman), the handsome, falsely accused young man on the run (Richard Todd), the earnest Police officer (Michael Wilding) and the clever and discerning father (Alastair Sim). Wyman plays Eve Gill, a young stage actress who tries to clear her friend, and fellow actor Jonathan Cooper of murder charges. Cooper is accused of killing the husband of performer Charlotte Inwood (played in equal parts vamp and creepiness by Marlene Detrich), who is the closest Hitchcock comes to having a Noir femme fatale. Cooper admits to being the secret lover of Inwood, but not her killer. Eve begins to investigate the murder, including going undercover as a maid for Inwood. As she investigates, Eve sees how manipulative Inwood is, as well how little she mourns her former husband, more concerned with how she looks in her mourning clothes than that her husband had been brutally murdered. Witnessing this, Eve is even more convinced of Cooper's innocence and continues to help him evade the police. All along the way, she and her father meddle in the case, hiding Cooper and attempting to mislead Detective Smith, who they view as pursuing an innocent man.
However, what makes Stage Fright so interesting is how Hitchcock starts to mess with the well known tropes he has established in many previous films, particularly that of falsely accused hero. All of a sudden, after you've slipped into a place of familiarity with the idea of Cooper as innocent and manipulated, as "the wrong man," a theme that runs through so many of Hitchcock's films, all that is turned on it's head. It turns out that Cooper had been lying the whole time, he actually is the murderer. For the whole movie, Eve and her father were actually helping a guilty man escape justice and the police were in the right the whole time. It makes the suspense and terror at the end of the movie, when Cooper tries to kill Eve all the more horrifying. All of a sudden, the innocent fugitive on the run is the psychopathic killer trying to kill the girl who has been helping him the whole movie. That is what Stage Fright does perfectly, taking what you think you know so well and turning it back on the audience and the main character.
Through Hitchcock's filmography, he experimented with limiting the settings of his movies, starting with Lifeboat (1944), then followed by Rope (1948), Dial M For Murder (1954), and Rear Window (1954). This puts the emphasis on more on the characters than the direction work, with Hitchcock taking a back seat style-wise and staying out if the way. In a movie like Vertigo (1958), for instance there are scenes where you are very aware of the direction and shot, while these four limited setting movies want you to be so immersed you forget the camera is even there. This was taken to an extreme in Rope, where Hitchcock utilized many long takes to hide shots. In fact Hitchcock shot the movie in a total of ten shots, ranging in length from 4 and a half to 10 minutes in length, however he also used masking techniques to make it appear as if almost the whole film was shot in one continuous take (for example, one shot ends on someone's back the next one starts at the same point). This was necessary due to the length of film reels at that time. This use of long takes was notable for it's time and has influenced filmmakers the likes of contemporaries like Orson Welles and David Lean all the way to current times with the films of Alfonso Cuaron and Paul Thomas Anderson. The long takes, combined with the fact that the movie takes place in real time (meaning there are no jumps forward or back in time) gives the appearance of a stage play, which makes sense because Rope is based on the popular play 1929 play of the same name by Patrick Hamilton.
While it is a notable technical achievement, Rope also features a gripping, classic Hitchcock story full of suspense, tension, and more uniquely among the Hitchcock canon: philosophy. The story revolves around the murder of a young man named David (played by Dick Hogan) by two of his friends, Brandon (John Dall) and Phillip (Farley Granger), which takes place in the opening scene of the movie. Brandon and Phillip are attempting to prove they are Nietzsche's "super-humans," not only smart enough to get away with murder but above the law due to their "intellectual superiority." This plot is based on the chilling real life case of Leopold and Loeb, who used a similar philosophy to justify the kidnapping, and murder of a 14-year-old in 1924. What complicates the story is that the murderers are forced to hide the body in a wooden chest while hosting a dinner party featuring the victims father (Cedric Hardwicke), aunt (Constance Collier), fiancee (Joan Chandler), and friend (Douglas Dick). Also at the party is David, Brandon, and Phillip's former teacher Rupert (Jimmy Stewart), who debates Nietzsche's philosophy with the murderers while slowly finding out about the murder. Rupert also taught the pair this philosophy, indirectly responsible for the murders, a fact he realizes with horror later on in the film.
The movie shines in the tension it creates simply through the location of the body and the way that Rupert inches closer and closer to figuring out what happened. As Rupert grows closer to discovery, the killers start to get scared, going from calm and cold murders who believe they are super-men to pitiful, panicking piles of sweat. It is a satisfying ending for a pair of killers that you grow to hate throughout the film. Instead of trying to escape and being shot like so many exposed killers, Brandon and Phillip break down emotionally and mentally, and are laid bare not as super men, but as sub-human.
Due to the fact that his most popular American films were all thrillers and dramas, Hitchcock has become universally known as the master of suspense. This is a shame however, because it's often overlooked just how funny and charming his early films could be. Most people see Hitchcock's 1941 screwball comedy Mr. and Mrs. Smith as an oddity in his filmography, but it is really just an extrapolation of many of the comedy elements found in his British films, but minus the mystery elements.
At it's heart, Young and Innocent is a love story around the trappings of a mystery. After a successful actress is murdered, writer Robert Tisdall (Derrick De Marney) is in the wrong place at the wrong time and accused of the murder with little chance of being proved innocent. After escaping from the police, he is helped by the constable's daughter Erica (Nova Pilbeam) who, though apprehensive at first, believes in his innocence. Robert and Erica investigate the murder and discover the real killer, but that's just an excuse for the true heart of the story: the relationship between the two young leads. Despite the serious nature of the plot, a murder, the movie is lighthearted, genuinely funny and full of humerous conversations and situations. For example, while later Hitchock films create tension at gun point, Young and Innocent uses family banter at a dinner table or a children's birthday party where everyone is wearing silly hats. In these scenes you don't know whether to laugh at the ridiculousness of the situation or bite your nails wondering if the fugitive will be found out. The movie isn't so much about the solving of the mystery, which isn't much of a mystery, it's more a collection of moments, tied together by the plot but focused on the growing relationship between Erica and Robert.
While the charm and humor of the movie is tremendous, one of the ways that it stands out is it is about love, something that doesn't come up much in Hitchcock's later films. Oh, there are men and women, and kissing, and marriages in those movies, but they deal more with obsession, with a mature, complicated and adult love, not like the young and innocent love of Robert and Erica.
Though the 1956 remake, also directed by Hitchcock, is a much better known movie, the original is superior in almost every way. While the remake has big stars, exotic locals, and an Academy Award winning song performed by Doris Day, much of it is surface level entertainment. The original, on the other hand, has more grit, less flash and more substance. From a directional standpoint, Hitchcock does well creating tension in both movies, the lead up to the assassination in both movies is gripping and the direction has much to do with that.
However, it's not the direction that makes the original standout from the remake, it's the actors. You never get over the sense that you are watching Jimmy Stewart and particularly Doris Day acting in a movie. Yes, they give fine performances, but that's what it is: a performance by well known actors. It's hard not to be drawn out of the narrative when Doris Day is signing "Que Sera, Sera." In the original, the lesser known actors provide a higher level of believability and allows the audience to be drawn into the gripping narrative of an English couple (Leslie Bank and Edna Best) trying to find their kidnapped daughter (Nova Pilbeam) while also investigating an planned assassination of an European official. The assassins are led by Abbott, played by Peter Lorre in his first English language film. Lorre, already an accomplished actor in Germany, gives a tremendous performance, at first appearing as a charming foreigner but eventually morphing into the conniving and vicious criminal. The fact that Lorre wasn't yet fluent in English only adds to the effect. The tension and suspense created during attempted assassination at the Royal Albert Hall rivals any of the big set-piece moments in later Hitchcock films, but the movie doesn't peak there. The aftermath of the failed assassination attempt leads into a dramatic standoff and shootout in the London docks.
Though it is 45 minutes shorter, the original version of The Man Who Knew Too Much, packs more action and tension into it's 75 minutes than the remake. Add to that the more believable acting by the leads, terrific moments of suspense and Lorre's tremendous performance and you have one of the most unheralded Hitchcock masterpieces. It will never be as well known as it's remake, but hopefully more fans will discover it.
Set right on the eve of World War II, Alfred Hitchcock's second American film is equal parts adventure, intrigue, and propaganda. While his American debut, the archaic Rebecca (1940), could have been sent in any time period, Foreign Correspondent is jarringly current, and could only be set on the precipice of world war.
The only of Hitchcock's American films written by his old cohort Charles Bennett (The Man Who Knew Too Much, Young and Innocent, The 39 Steps), Foreign Correspondent combines the tone and wit of those early British films, but with a big Hollywood budget. There is a rain-soaked assassination and shoot-out, an escape over a hotel roof, a scene on the Westminster Cathedral, and a plane crash at sea, interspersed with one-liners and wisecracks, courtesy of rough American reporter Huntley Haverstock (Joel McRea). Haverstock is a fish out of water in the politics of Europe, slowly and in some ways bumbilingly unraveling the conspiracy revolving around the kidnapping of a high level diplomat (Albert Bassermann) and a spy network of Nazi agents in London. Haverstock is aided by love interest Carol Fisher (Laraine Day) and fellow journalist Scott ffolliot (George Sanders), who each have their moments of drama and humor. The mystery of the conspiracy isn't the main appeal of the movie, the solution is revealed early on, it's more about the richness of the characters and the tension created by the set-piece moments. All three of the protagonists shine in different scenes, and when all three are together the movie really takes off. No stranger to propaganda, Hitchcock wanted to make a movie that would bring knowledge of the situation in Europe and Britain to American audiences who were uninformed about just how dire the situation was growing for England. With Haverstock's impassioned plea to America at the end of the movie, Hitchcock was able to speak directly to his audience, but still pull it off naturally within the structure of the film. It is a scene that transcends the movie and places you back in an uncertain and dangerous time.
Though it deals with the serious subject of an upcoming world war, the movie never loses it's light tone and sense of humor, thanks in large part to McCrea. McCrea, a comedy veteran of some of the funniest movies of the 40s but also an experienced dramatic actor, is able to go from trading witty remarks to serious moments with ease. That is what makes Foreign Correspondent so good, it's ability tactfully deal with an issue like war without taking itself too seriously, a pitfall that many similar movies fall into.
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