The Missing Triangle in Alfred Hitchcock's Stage Fright

Alfred Hitchcock had few kind words to say about Stage Fright. But one can learn a great deal more from one of Hitchcock's misfires than from many other filmmakers' best works. In the case of Stage Fright, Hitchcock and his writers—which included his wife, Alma Reville, Whitfield Cook, Ranald MacDougall and James Bridie—erred on three distinct points in adapting Selwyn Jepson's Man Running (aka Outrun the Constable) to the screen.

First and foremost, the film's writers chose to ignore one of three triangles from the novel. In the film there are two triangles that come into play. 1) Eve/Jonathan/Charlotte and 2) Eve/Jonathan/Smith. Initially, Eve is threatened by, and in some respects jealous of, the power that Charlotte holds over Jonathan with whom Eve is clearly infatuated. As the film progresses though that triangle becomes less significant as Eve grows closer to Detective Smith. Late in the film Eve remains determined to exonerate Jonathan, but her romantic leanings have clearly shifted to Smith who at least is sending reciprocal signals.


In the novel, however, a third triangle becomes particularly important near the end—that of Charlotte/Jonathan/Freddy Williams. Unlike in the film, Charlotte's lover, Freddy Williams, is the killer in the novel. In order to protect Freddy, Charlotte sends Jonathan to her flat to retrieve a dress. When Eve confronts Charlotte and Freddy with her suspicions, Freddy tries to silence Eve—permanently—making for some suspenseful moments as Eve puts herself in genuine danger in order to clear Jonathan.


This brings us to the film's second flaw. The writers gave their script a weak villain in Jonathan Cooper (Jonathan Penrose in the novel). That he is the unwitting dupe of Charlotte Inwood is consistent with the novel, where it is in fact Charlotte and Freddy Williams who are the pair responsible for the murder of her husband. In the film though, Hitchcock and his writers chose to make Jonathan responsible, and in what can best be described as an eleventh hour twist that goes against everything that has come before, the writers establish not only that Charlotte seduced Jonathan to murder her husband, but that he in fact had killed before, and therefore Eve is now in danger!

The screenwriters' choice to build tension in the film's final moments by transforming Jonathan from Charlotte's pawn to an outright psychopath becomes difficult to swallow, and is directly linked to the film's fatal flaw—which resulted in the need to abandon a long-planned humorous ending.

The treatment by Alma and Whitfield Cook, dated March 23, 1949, ends as follows:

We FADE IN once again on the stone sign 'Royal Academy of Dramatic Art'. We LAP DISSOLVE to a CLOSE SHOT of Eve in another man's arms - they are in the midst of a rather powerful love scene. Eve is doing it extremely well. The CAMERA pulls back revealing the small Royal Academy stage and the dramatic coach, who is sitting in front. The latter stops the scene and compliments Eve on the marked improvement in her acting. She tells her to run over the scene again. Eve acknowledges the compliment and starts again. The scene contains many terms of endearment and kisses. We turn the CAMERA around and show a few students and others watching this rehearsal, - the CAMERA moves in until it comes to a close-up of Smith, who is watching this passionate scene with an extremely glum and pouting expression.. So this is what it's going to be like married to an actress!

FADE OUT.

NOTE: There has been a suggestion that instead of an End Title the following words should be put at the end of the picture:

"So, you see, my advice to budding actresses is to get mixed up in a nice murder case.

(Signed)
Alfred Hitchcock."

This idea in the treatment was then scripted in a number of ways, one by the writer Ranald MacDougal, which takes place in the rehearsal hall.


Ranald MacDougal's draft of the final tag:

FADE IN.

EXT. ROYAL ACADEMY OF DRAMATIC ART - CLOSE UP

Again we see the stone sign 'ROYAL ACADEMY OF DRAMATIC ART'.

QUICK DISSOLVE TO:

INT. REHEARSAL HALL - EVENING - CLOSE UP 

Eve is in the arms of a strange very tall blonde young man. She is playing a love scene, and doing it extremely well.

EVE

(deeply moved)

"But I do understand. I know all the fear and horror you must have gone through, my darling….And I only wish that in some small way I could have - saved you from yourself, saved you from your tragic fate..."

She kisses the young man passionately as the CAMERA PULLS BACK to reveal the small stage of the rehearsal hall and the same dramatic coach, Miss Ashton, seated in the front row. As they break away from the kiss Miss Ashton leans forward - 

MISS ASHTON

(in a pleased voice)

Very nice, Eve. Very nice indeed. For some mysterious reason, your acting has improved enormously…Shall we do that little scene again?

Eve and the young man begin the scene again - the CAMERA BEGINS TO turn around from the stage until it faces the auditorium - there are on or two other student behind Miss Ashton watching. CAMERA MOVES IN UNTIL IT REACHES A solitary figure - it is Smith. When Camera reaches him in CLOSE SHOT we see he is watching this love scene with an extremely glum expression. Over this we have heard;

EVE'S VOICE

"Oh, my darling, I thought I'd never see you again! - Hold me close. Close!..."

YOUNG MAN'S VOICE

"I love you so terribly ... my dearest..."

EVE'S VOICE

"What can I do to help you? Where will they take you tomorrow?"

YOUNG MAN'S VOICE

"I don't know. Oh, Helen, I feel I've been so weak…But you can't understand what torture these months have been..."

EVE'S VOICE

"But I do understand. I know all the fear." etc..etc..etc...

Smith is now almost pouting - so this is what it's going to be like, married to an actress!

FADE OUT.

As the scene Fades out instead of The End title, the following words DISSOLVE IN -

"So, you see, my advice to budding actresses is to get mixed up in a nice murder case.

(Signed)
Alfred Hitchcock."

And: 

  EXT. ROYAL ACADEMY OF DRAMATIC ART. CLOSEUP.

FADE IN: Again we see the stone sign

"ROYAL ACADEMY OF DRAMATIC ART"

QUICK DISSOLVE TO:

  INT. DRESSING ROOM AT R.A.D.A. EVENING

Half a dozen girls dress in this room and there is a    confusion of make-up boxes, dresses etc. THE CAMERA searches for Eve and finds her, alone in the room, dressed in under- clothes. She is doing violent exercises of some kind and has obviously got an attack of nerves.

EVE:

Hip bath. Hip bath. Hip bath.

There is a knock in the door.

EVE:

Come in.

CAMERA PULLS BACK to show Smith entering.

SMITH:

Darling, you're wonderful. I'm sorry for coming round in the middle of the show. But I had to tell you…

EVE:

I can't speak to you now.

SMITH:

But I've got the license, and I've seen the Parson and your mother says …

Chubby enters like a whirlwind.

CHUBBY:

Darling, they forgot to call you and you're practically ON. Where's your dress?

EVE:

Oh, my goodness gracious ...

CHUBBY:

Hurry. Hurry. 

Chubby throws Eve's dress over her head and fastens it while Eve tidies her hair in front of the mirror.

EVE: (to Smith)

I can't possibly talk to you. There are three producers in front. And I'm late and it's my big scene.

(to Chubby)

Be quick. Be quick.

Smith takes a ring from his pocket.

SMITH:

I have this.

Eve glances at it on her way then exclaims:

EVE:

Oh, how lovely.

Eve looks adoringly at Smith then rushes out of the dressing-room followed by Chubby and Smith.

  INT. CORRIDOR.

Eve running, pursued by Chubby, fastening hooks. She holds out her left hand toward Smith who is following her. He slips the ring on her engagement finger. She kisses him and he smiles happily.

  INT. WINGS OF R.A.D.A. STAGE.

A student Stage Manager and Miss Ashton in a panic as Eve arrives still holding Smith's hand - followed by Chubby. Miss Ashton looks disapprovingly at them.

EVE: (in a whisper)

Sorry.

MISS ASHTON:

It's no good being sorry. There's your cue. Go on.

  INT. R.A.D.A. STAGE FROM THE WINGS. MEDIUM SHOT.

Eve rushes on stage into the arms of the Bald Young Man.

EVE:

Oh, my darling ! At last ! At last !

CAMERA MOVES TO CLOSE UP of Smith in the wings. His face loses its pleased expression during Eve's speech.

EVE'S VOICE:

My dear one. My only love. The dark clouds have scattered. The world is full of the brightness of the sun. There is nothing left but happiness. For you and me. For you and me alone, my own beloved. For us alone … 

Smith's face shows some lack of appreciation for these sentiments.

FADE OUT.

Ultimately, as much as Stage Fright grapples with retaining a light tone and humor throughout, once Eve drops the play-acting, and has to experience real emotions to get Charlotte to implicate herself in the murder, and once Jonathan goes full psycho and is killed, it was impossible to swing the pendulum back toward a humorous ending.

Alfred Hitchcock and His Writers: An Overview

I was thinking that this would be a good time to give new readers a bit of backstory—a history of Alfred Hitchcock and his writers, and why I feel this is an aspect of his career deserving of much attention.

To Alfred Hitchcock the real creative work of making motion pictures was done in the office with the writer. Having participated in this process, Hitchcock was not only entitled to, but relished being praised an auteur. "A lot of people embrace the auteur theory," said Hitchcock. "But it's difficult to know what someone means by it. I suppose they mean that the responsibility for the film rests solely on the shoulders of the director. But very often the director is no better than his script."

From selection of the basic material, to the hiring (and firing) of every writer, to the final revision of the final shooting-script, Hitchcock involved himself in nearly every aspect of developing the screenplays for his films. Although he rarely did any actual "writing", especially on his Hollywood productions, Hitchcock supervised and guided his writers through every draft, insisting on a strict attention to detail, and a preference for telling the story through visual rather than verbal means. While this exasperated some writers, others admitted the director inspired them to do their very best work. Hitchcock often emphasized that he took no screen credit for writing his films, however over time, the contributions of many of his writers have been solely attributed to Hitchcock's creative genius, and he rarely went out of his way to correct this misconception. Notwithstanding his technical brilliance as a director, Hitchcock relied on his writers a great deal.

Legend has it that Robert Riskin—screenwriter of such Frank Capra classics as It Happened One Night, Meet John Doe, and Mr. Deeds Goes to Town—was incensed that all the critics seemed to write about when discussing their movies was "the Capra touch." Riskin supposedly walked into Capra's office one day and dropped a pile of blank pages on his desk and told him to "give the Capra touch to that." While Hitchcock would have met the challenge had one of his writers done the same, all his cinematic tricks would have amounted to very little without the solid stories, sophisticated dialogue, and characterizations provided by his best writers.

Hitchcock's first job in film was as a designer of silent movie titles, which led him to work closely with the studio's writers. It was during this early apprenticeship that Hitchcock learned the fundamentals of writing movie scenarios, and he might have found his calling had his visual flare, technical proficiency, and exposure to the German cinema not made him more ideally suited to becoming a director than a film writer.

At least Michael Balcon, chief of Gainsborough pictures, thought so when he assigned Eliot Stannard to write Hitchcock's directorial debut, The Pleasure Garden. Stannard was a ten-year veteran of the British film industry with more than fifty scripts to his credit when he wrote Hitchcock's first five films for Gainsborough, including the breakthrough thriller, The Lodger. Ivor Montagu described Stannard as a consummate professional, whose method "was to sit down and tap it straight out on the typewriter as he thought of it, without change or erasement." Stannard followed Hitchcock to British International Pictures for two more films where his sure-handed writing freed the director to sharpen the visual skills that quickly set him apart from his contemporaries.

Hitchcock's transition from silent to talking pictures appropriately coincided with the beginning of his long association with screenwriter Charles Bennett. It was Bennett's own stage play Blackmail which Hitchcock adapted for the screen that became England's first "talkie". Four years later, Bennett and Hitchcock would reunite to make movie history. 

Beginning with The Man Who Knew Too Much in 1934, Hitchcock and Bennett closely collaborated on a string of innovative thrillers which combined a certain wit, freshness and originality that became trademarks of Hitchcock's style. Bennett's true genius was at story construction, and his scenarios were built on many devices now regarded as "Hitchcockian"—the 'MacGuffin', the double-chase, the charming villain, and the use of exotic locales woven dramatically into the plot. With Bennett, Hitchcock's cinematic vision had come into clear focus, and he also charted the course which the most successful of his screenwriting collaborations would take. Bennett described a typical workday with Hitchcock:

In the morning, I used to get up and pick up Hitch in Cromwell Road, where he lived, at ten o'clock exactly. And he would be sitting on the curb waiting for me, with Joan Harrison, who was our secretary... And then we would go to the studio where we would discuss the script and what I was doing with it ... Then at about one o'clock, everything would stop, and we'd go to lunch, always at the Mayfair Hotel, and have a wonderful lunch. Then come back and at that point, Hitch would usually go to sleep in the office, and I would do a little work, and possibly doze off too slightly. But eventually, at about five o'clock, we would go back to Hitchcock's flat where we would start having nice cocktails for the evening, and talk more and more and more about the script. And I think more work was done on the script in the evening over cocktails, than any other time.

Bennett and Hitchcock would meet each day until they completed a detailed treatment, of about 70 to 100 pages. Not until this treatment was completed would any dialogue be written. In Bennett's case, Hitchcock nearly always brought in other writers for dialogue. With Bennett's scripts for The 39 Steps, Secret Agent, Sabotage, Young and Innocent, and later Foreign Correspondent, Hitchcock reached the zenith of his British period and Hollywood beckoned.

Hitchcock arrived in Hollywood in 1939 and although he worked with a number of distinguished American authors including Robert E. Sherwood and Dorothy Parker, these early efforts were largely stories set in England, or reworkings of his British successes. The director did not establish a truly American voice until his collaboration with playwright Thornton Wilder on Shadow of a Doubt. "This was one of those rare occasions when suspense and melodrama combined well with character," said Hitchcock. An even more fruitful association with Ben Hecht followed.

Hecht had a knack for crackling dialogue and strong characterizations honed from years as a Chicago newspaper reporter. Complemented by Hitchcock's plot twists and means of drawing suspense out of any situation, Hecht turned out two of the director's finest achievements of the 1940s, Spellbound and Notorious. "He was an extraordinary screenwriter and a marvelous man," said Hitchcock of Hecht. "We would discuss a screenplay for hours and then he would say, 'Well, Hitchie, write the dialogue you want and then I'll correct it.' Ben was like a chess player, he could work on four scripts at the same time." The collaboration could not last though, because in addition to being one of the busiest and most expensive screenwriters in Hollywood, Hecht was as notorious a self-promoter as Hitchcock.

Following Hecht, Hitchcock never worked with another writer whose reputation was at par with, or exceeded his own. This is also why Hitchcock's films were frequently adapted from lesser known novels and plays. Hitchcock learned a valuable lesson from his first Hollywood production, Rebecca, which was billed as "David O. Selznick's production of Daphne du Maurier's celebrated novel ... directed by Alfred Hitchcock." Thenceforth, whatever the source material, Hitchcock's name would not be over-shadowed by the original author's.

Following a string of commercial failures at Warner Brothers and his own company Transatlantic Pictures, Hitchcock moved to the Paramount Pictures Corporation where he turned out a series of upbeat comedies skillfully written by John Michael Hayes. The Hitchcock-Hayes collaboration produced four motion pictures in two years—Rear Window, To Catch a Thief, The Trouble with Harry, and The Man Who Knew Too Much—and proved to be one of the most successful director-screenwriter pairings in Hollywood history.

"What I brought to Hitch was character, dialogue, movement, and entertainment," remembered Hayes. "And he supplied the suspense element. You see, if a writer goes to work with Hitchcock, he doesn't need to bring suspense with him, because Hitch has that." Hayes left an indelible mark on the director's canon, just as Charles Bennett did before him. With Hayes, Hitchcock's films attained the pinnacle of style and sophistication, highlighted by crisp dialogue. "It was a wonderful experience," said Hayes. "I learned a lot from Hitch about gourmet food, cigars and wine, in addition to learning about screenwriting. When we worked together there was a certain brightness to his movies, and we should have done more."

Like the comic-thrillers of Hitchcock's British period, the Hayes films shine like a beacon in an otherwise gloomy landscape. But even more than these early masterworks, Hitchcock's films with Hayes were consistent in their wit, originality, and sheer creative excellence. Theirs was a brilliant collaboration that should have continued, but Hayes committed the gravest of sins, challenging Hitchcock over a credit dispute on The Man Who Knew Too Much (1956). Hayes won the battle, but Hitchcock severed the relationship. Following Hayes, Hitchcock never settled on an individual writer with whom he completed more than one consecutive film.

Hitchcock ended the 1950s working with screenwriters Samuel Taylor and Ernest Lehman, each of whom wrote one of the director's masterworks. According to Taylor, who wrote Vertigo, Hitchcock understood the difference between plot and story, observing that while the director's films were often looked down upon because of the genre in which he worked, the characters' stories were of great significance. "He preferred telling an inconsequential yarn," recalled Taylor, "but bringing to it all the artistry he had."

Ernest Lehman set out to write the "Hitchcock picture to end all Hitchcock pictures." The result was the greatest Hitchcock chase film, North by Northwest. "He didn't go around like some imperious film producer-director," recalled Lehman. "He was very quiet, very unassuming, but everybody was afraid of his disapproval, and that's what made them do their best for him. You feared doing something that was below his standards."

As the cost of moviemaking began to skyrocket, Hitchcock chose to move away from writers like Lehman and Taylor who commanded high salaries. Thus he sought out less expensive (and less experienced) writers, and the quality of his films began to decline. Beginning with Joseph Stefano on Psycho, Hitchcock engaged a series of relative newcomers to write his films. This allowed Hitchcock to avoid paying high fees and maintain a comfortable level of control over his writers, but the scripts were often sorely in need of the skills of a Hayes, Taylor, or Lehman. John Michael Hayes observed, "Hitch relied on stars and suspense to sell his pictures, when he should have been concerned with the script more than anything else."

The 1960s were particularly troublesome for Hitchcock and his writers—The Birds screenwriter, Evan Hunter, was dismissed from Marnie when he refused to write the film's rape scene; after completing Marnie, Jay Presson Allen adapted J.M. Barrie's Mary Rose for Hitchcock, but the studio discouraged the director from proceeding with the film; and Brian Moore was so dissatisfied with his script that asked to have his name removed from Torn Curtain. Hitchcock had reached a point in his career where nearly every project he started required multiple writers, and even more projects were abandoned at the script stage. Joseph Stefano observed, "In a strange way, the rest of his movies were an attempt to top Psycho. He never got back to that nice leisurely going from one film to another that he had done before."

In the end, Hitchcock maintained no allegiance with any of his writers. Even Ernest Lehman, who reunited with the director for Family Plot, was replaced by another writer on The Short Night, the last project Hitchcock was preparing before his death in 1980. Perhaps then, the single most important collaborator of Hitchcock's career was his wife Alma Reville. For nearly fifty years when not directly involved in the writing of one of her husband's movies, Alma was always in the wings as Hitchcock's in-house story editor. Many of Hitchcock's writers attested to the fact that the director did not believe in flattery, and agreed that the greatest compliment one could receive from Hitchcock was that "Alma liked the screenplay very much."

Without a doubt, Alfred Hitchcock brought out the very best in his writers. Hitchcock's writers created absorbing storylines, peopled them with interesting characters, and provided them with compelling dialogue. Combined with Hitchcock's direction, they produced a body of work unmatched in the cinema.