Dial M for Murder is a second-tier Hitchcock thriller, mostly known today for its star performance by Grace Kelly and for its technical production values.
Grade: B+ (**** out of *****)
| Dial M for Murder | |
|---|---|
Theatrical release poster by Bill Gold
|
|
Even so, the movie is so sleek, so well acted, and so lightly entertaining that we disregard its narrative and structural shortcomings.
Ray Milland, not a characteristic Hitchcock thespian, plays Tony Wendice, a greedy playboy whose wealth has come entirely through his marriage to the chic and beautiful heiress, Margo (played by Hollywood’s hottest actress of the time, Grace Kelly).
When Tony fears he’ll lose her riches to American mystery writer Cummings, he plots to kill her. Milland contacts Dawson, an old acquaintance from college now a criminal, and blackmails him into killing his wife while he is away.
However, Tony’s plan misfires, when the murder plans go awry, leading to a thorough questioning from the crafty inspector Williams.
Based on the successful play by Frederick Knott, this adaptation was essentially treated as an assignment by Hitchcock, who had already begun to work on “Rear Window,” also released in 1954 (and would become one of his masterpieces).
Studio mogul Jack Warner insisted that Hitchcock shoots the picture in 3D, which presented a lot of limitations for the maestro. For his part, Hitchcock focused his attention on his new favorite actress, Kelly, with whom he would work again on his next two films, Rear Window and To Catch a Thief.
Repeating his stage role as the Scotland Yard inspector, Hubbard, is John Williams, who excels among the cast. Williams has most of the text’s witty lines. At one point, he tells the husband, “The trouble with these latchkeys is that they’re all alike,” when the key becomes the ”key” to the whole mystery.
Williams tells Mark Holliday (Bob Cummings), who’s Margo’s lover: “They talk about flat-footed policemen. May the saint protect us from the gifted amateur.”
Although the 3D version has hardly been seen, it does contain one of the best uses of the added dimension as Kelly, while being attacked, reaches “into the audience,” desperately searching for a weapon—scissors–to defend herself.
The opening credit sequence of a finger dialing “M” on a telephone is, because of the problems of getting close focus with 3D, actually a giant dial and a large wooden finger which Hitchcock had constructed.
| Dial M for Murder | |
|---|---|
Origins: Stage Play
The play premiered in 1952 on BBC Television, before being performed on stage in the same year in London’s West End in June, and then New York’s Broadway in October.
Versions: 3-D and 2-D
Originally intended to be shown in dual-strip polarized 3-D, the film played in most theatres in ordinary 2-D due to the loss of interest in the 3-D process (the projection was difficult and error-prone) by the time of its release.
Detailed Synopsis
In the mid-1950s, Tony Wendice, a retired English professional tennis player, is married to wealthy socialite Margot, who has been having an affair with their friend Mark Halliday, an American crime-fiction writer. Unbeknownst to them, Tony knows about the affair and plots Margot’s murder to inherit her fortune, fearing a divorce would leave him penniless.
Tony is also aware that Charles Swann, an old acquaintance from Cambridge, is a small-time con man with a criminal record. Tony invites Swann to his Maida Vale flat on a pretext, and tells him about Margot’s affair. Tony also confides that six months previously, he stole Margot’s handbag, which contained a love letter from Mark, and anonymously blackmailed her. After tricking Swann into leaving his fingerprints on the letter, Tony entraps him, threatening to turn him in as Margot’s blackmailer unless he kills Margot. With the added inducement of £1,000 in cash, Swann agrees to the murder. Tony then explains that he and Mark will attend a party while Margot stays home alone. At a specific time when Margot is certain to be in bed, Swann will enter the front door, which is always unlocked, and will enter the locked door of the flat with Margot’s latchkey, which Tony will hide on the staircase under a carpet. Tony will then telephone the flat from the party and Swann will kill Margot when she answers the call. Swann will whistle over the phone to signal the job is done, then create signs of a burglary gone wrong, and return the key back under the staircase carpet as he is leaving the building.
The following night, Swann enters the flat and Tony calls as planned. When Margot comes to the phone, Swann tries to strangle her with his scarf, but she fatally stabs him with scissors. Upon hearing Margot plead for help instead of Swann’s whistle, Tony advises her not to speak to anyone. He returns home, calls the police, sends Margot to bed, and transfers what he thinks is Margot’s key from Swann’s pocket into her handbag.
He also attempts to frame Margot by planting Mark’s letter on Swann and destroying Swann’s scarf.
Drive-In
The film earned an estimated $2.7 million in American box office sales in 1954.
The tale has been remade several times for both the small and big screen.
Cast
Cummings, Kelly, and Milland
Ray Milland as Tony Wendice
Grace Kelly as Margot Mary Wendice
Robert Cummings as Mark Halliday
John Williams as Chief Inspector Hubbard
Anthony Dawson as Charles Alexander Swann/Captain Lesgate
Leo Britt as storyteller at the party
Patrick Allen as Detective Pearson
Robin Hughes as Police Sergeant
Martin Milner as policeman outside Wendice flat (uncredited)
George Leigh as Detective Williams
George Alderson as First Detective
Credits:
Directed, produced by Alfred Hitchcock
Screenplay by Frederick Knott, based on Dial M for Murder, 1952 play by Frederick Knott
Produced by Alfred Hitchcock
Cinematography Robert Burks
Edited by Rudi Fehr
Music by Dimitri Tiomkin
Distributed by Warner Bros.
Release dates: May 18, 1954 (Philadelphia); May 29, 1954 (US)
Running time: 105 minutes
Budget $1.4 million
Box office $6 million
