Hitchcock Retrospective: STAGE FRIGHT

NOVEMBER 13 | Stage Fright (1950)

Starring: Jane Wyman, Marlene Dietrich

Murder, deception, and theatrical illusion take center stage.Hitchcock brings murder into the world of the theater in Stage Fright, a playful mystery built around performance, disguise, and the slippery nature of truth. Marlene Dietrich commands the spotlight while Hitchcock repeatedly asks whether anything—or anyone—is quite what it appears to be. The result is an unusually witty experiment in storytelling from a director fascinated by the lies we willingly believe.

5PM Foodie Fridays

6PM Pre-Show: Vintage Trailers, Clips

7PM Screening + Film Q&A with Richard L. Edwards + Vanessa Theme Ament

Historic Camelot Theatre | Palm Springs Cultural Center

Richard L. Edwards is Executive Director of XCITE at UC Riverside and holds a PhD in Film Studies from USC’s School of Cinematic Arts. He taught the acclaimed TCM online course 50 Years of Hitchcock, co-hosts the popular podcast Out of the Past: Investigating Film Noir, and co-authored The Maltese Touch of Evil: Film Noir and Political Criticism. A noted Hitchcock and noir scholar, Edwards also hosts NoirCon at the Palm Springs Cultural Center, featuring classic noir screenings at the Camelot Theatre.

Vanessa Theme Ament brings a rare combination of firsthand Hollywood experience and film scholarship to the Hitchcock Retrospective. An award-winning Foley artist, author, educator, and scholar with a Ph.D. in Moving Image Studies, Ament offers an insider’s perspective on the history, craft, and evolution of cinema.