MovieChat Forums > Stage Fright (1950) Discussion > Younger Man/Older Woman Teams in Film

Younger Man/Older Woman Teams in Film

posted 13 years ago by HarlowMGM
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Marlene Dietrich is playing a veteran diva so perhaps it's to be expected her lover, Richard Todd, is younger, a full eighteen years in fact. Yet what are we to make of Alstair Sim and Sybil Thorndike, with Sim also being eighteen years his wife's junior!!

I think Sim's part must have been written for a slightly older actor but he was such a good choice Hitchcock overlooked it. Or maybe this was an in-joke for him to cast the parents with an age gap that mirrored the Dietrich/Todd coupling?

In any case, all four are superb, particularly Alstair Sim who should have been Oscar nominated for Best Supporting Actor.

[–] TCMer 13 years ago

I saw one just the other night -- All Fall Down (1962), in which Warren Beatty hooks up with an older Eva Marie Saint.

I think Sim's part must have been written for a slightly older actor but he was such a good choice Hitchcock overlooked it. Or maybe this was an in-joke for him to cast the parents with an age gap that mirrored the Dietrich/Todd coupling?

I bet your second explanation is probably right. Hitchcock was apparently into pop psychology, as evidenced by Marnie.

"What I got don't need pearls." -- Linda Darnell (1923-65)