Tag Archives: Hector MacGregor

Stage Fright (1950)

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After a long, long time, a review of an Alfred Hitchcock film. Hitch has been one of my favourite directors ever since I (then aged twelve) first watched The Lady Vanishes. In the first few years of blogging, I ended up reviewing most of my favourite Hitch films from before 1970: The Thirty-Nine Steps, Rear Window, The Trouble With Harry, The Man Who Knew Too Much, Spellbound, Lifeboat… and others. But it’s been a while, and this film has been lying among the bookmarks on my browser, waiting to be watched, for quite a while now.

The aptly-named Stage Fright is set in the world of theatre, where Eve Gill (a very young Jane Wyman) is an aspiring actress. She has still not quite managed to make it into any productions, really, but she is hopeful. When the story begins, though, Eve is not acting or rehearsing: she’s busy helping a friend of hers who’s in trouble. Jonathan Cooper (Richard Todd) is likely to get implicated in a murder, and Eve is driving him to (hopefully) safety.

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The Reluctant Widow (1950)

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Based on a novel by Georgette Heyer.

Georgette Heyer is one of my favourite authors, and when, the other day I discovered that one of Heyer’s books had been made into a film, I managed to find a copy on YouTube. Though the hard-coded Greek subtitles on this copy are a little distracting, at least I was able to watch The Reluctant Widow, aka The Inheritance.

The film begins on a night in the English countryside. Elinor Rochdale (Jean Kent), who has just gotten off a stage coach, is hailed by a groom with a carriage, asking her if she has come in answer to the advertisement? Elinor says yes, so she gets into the coach and is taken to (as she assumes) the home of Mrs Macclesfield, who has employed Elinor as a governess for her young son. Elinor, once wealthy, is in sadly reduced circumstances since the death of her father, and with nowhere to go and no other means of keeping body and soul together, has chosen to work.

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