--Minor Spoilers--<br /><br />While reading user comments for other Hitchcock movies, I came across this phrase often, generally in association with TOPAZ:<br /><br />"This is by far Hitchcock's worst since STAGE FRIGHT..." or something to that effect.<br /><br />Maybe I'm just a hopeless blabbering Hitchcock fan, but I found Topaz and Stage Fright to be much better than the press they've gotten.<br /><br />Stage Fright has been accused of being boring, although I suspect this is because there is no violence at all until the very end of the movie, and instead it deals quite a bit with dialogue and character development.<br /><br />At first, I thought the acting was overdone, but 30 minutes into the movie, I didn't even notice. And of course, I can't say enough about Alisair Sim's performance as Eve (Jane Wyman)'s father. He was amazing in this movie.<br /><br />I also thought Stage Fright contained quite a bit more of Hitchcock's dark sense of humor (note the bar and shooting gallery scenes, and Marlene Dietrich's comments while trying on her funeral gown). Absolute hilarious!<br /><br />Overall the movie is a keeper. It certainly isn't as good as PSYCHO or THE BIRDS or any of his other 50s-60s classics, and Hitchcock doesn't do much of his fancy camerawork (although the mingling through the bar was very nice), but this movie is surely no worse than JUNO AND THE PAYCOCK or TORN CURTAIN. And the usual Hitchcockian plot twist is always a nice touch.<br /><br />STAGE FRIGHT is probably one of Hitchcock's most forgotten and most underappreciated movies.<br /><br />9/10