Yorkshire Post (26/May/1950) - Mr. Hitchcock's New Recipe

Details

• article: Mr. Hitchcock's New Recipe
• newspaper: Yorkshire Post (26/May/1950)
• keywords: Alastair Sim, Alfred Hitchcock, Jane Wyman, Joyce Grenfell, Marlene Dietrich, Michael Wilding, Richard Todd, Stage Fright (1950), Sybil Thorndike

Article

Mr. Hitchcock's New Recipe

By Our London Film Critic

Cookery and film-making have a number of things in common but in the latter it is, I think, more necessary than in the former to vary the recipe. A relative of mine who makes the finest fruit cake this side of Paradise has learned that her excellent efforts in other directions never win the same degree of approbation from her family. Alfred Hitchcock now finds himself in exactly the same position.

Hitchcock made his reputation with a series of dramatic films that chilled the spines of all who saw them. Tills period of success was followed by one of failure. Now in "Stage Fright" (Warner) he has produced a first-rate film only to find that it is criticised because it is not the familiar spine-chilling fruit cake. Of course it is not. and obviously it is not intended to be. This time Hitchcock includes a liberal sprinkling of that amiable humorist, Allstair Sim. In his recipe. He garnishes the dish with the glamorous Marlene Dietrich singing a sophisticated little ditty, "I'm the laziest girl in town." Neither of these ingredients is calculated to chill the spine of anybody. Rather the contrary.

Many stars

Adapting Mrs. Beeton's method. Hitchcock has apparently followed the recipe, "Take a dozen stars..." Richard Todd, as the young man who succumbs to the wiles of Marlene Dietrich, and Michael Wilding, as a very public-school detective, are competent, but no more than that. Jane Wyman, on the other hand, gives a charming performance as a student actress. Around these three characters the main plot has its action.

Then there are three wholly delightful cameo studies. Joyce Grenfell conducting a shooting gallery at the Stage and Screen Garden Party. Miles Malleson as a veteran public-house habituté and Dame Sybil Thorndike as the genteel wife of Alistair Sim give performances which are perfect of their kind.

The plot, involving a battered husband, a blood-stained dress and a criminal lunatic, moves slowly until the climax of a man-hunt in a theatre. The ending in fact is a layer of the old familiar fruit cake. It is a new Hitchcock recipe and one to be recommended.