Stage Struck

Directed by Sidney Lumet, Stage Struck follows aspiring actress Eva Lovelace (Susan Strasberg) as she attempts to break into show business by cozying up to a successful Broadyway producer (Henry Fonda’s Lewis Easton) and a fledgling playwright (Christopher Plummer’s Joe Sheridan). Filmmaker Lumet, working from a script by Augustus and Ruth Goetz, delivers a hit-and-miss drama that’s rarely able to disguise its stageplay origins, as the movie suffers from an overly theatrical atmosphere that’s especially prominent (and hard to overlook) within its sluggish and far-from-enthralling opening stretch – with the arms-length atmosphere initially compounded by Strasberg’s aggressively grating work as the less-than-sympathetic central character. (Fonda and Plummer are as reliable and compelling as ever here, at least.) It’s clear, then, that Stage Struck doesn’t begin to improve until the emphasis is slowly-but-surely placed on the melodramatic exploits of its protagonists, with the eventual love triangle that forms between Eva, Lewis, and Joe essentially rescuing the picture from its tedious doldrums, and there’s little doubt, as well, that the movie succeeds as a behind-the-scenes portrait of what goes into mounting a big Broadway play. (The latter leads to an absolutely fascinating sequence detailing the backstage crew’s preparations for the start of the show.) The anticlimactic final stretch, however, ensures that Stage Struck fizzles out to a thoroughly disappointing and palpable degree, which ultimately does cement the film’s place as a wildly erratic drama that generally feels like it could (and should) be so much better.

**1/2 out of ****