Dial M for Murder (1954)
Directed by Alfred Hitchcock

Film Review

Alfred Hitchcock's faithful screen adaptation of Frederick Knott's hugely successful stage play Dial M for Murder is one of the director's most confined works as virtually all of the story takes place in just one set (a feat the director had previously pulled off in Lifeboat (1944) and Rope (1948)). Yet it is also one of his most compelling thrillers, Hitchcock's flawless mise-en-scène and some slick editing giving it a relentless pace and intensity. And it has an impeccable cast.

It seems incredible that Dial M for Murder was shot in just 36 days, particularly when it was made as a 3D film, requiring a radically new approach to camerawork.  A talky suspense play isn't exactly the obvious choice for a 3D film, but Hitchcock's inventive mind seized upon the opportunities this offered and conceived a  number of shots which have a much greater impact when seen in 3D rather than in conventional flat screen (the best example being Grace Kelly's hand reaching out towards the audience as her assailant tries to strangle her).  By the time the film was released, the short-lived fad for 3D was already on the wane and in virtually all cinemas the film was only shown in the traditional flat screen format.

Dial M for Murder was the film that established Grace Kelly as a major actress in Hollywood - and many would argue that it was here that she gave her best performance in her all too short career.  A favourite of Hitchcock, she would appear in two of his subsequent films: Rear Window (1954) and To Catch a Thief (1955).  Playing opposite Grace Kelly is another highly regarded actor, Ray Milland, whose portrayal of the film's villain achieves that perfect union of seductive charm and calculating evil which is found only in career politicians and double glazing salesmen.  Like so many other classic Hitchcock villains, it is Milland's character that the audience identifies with and, perversely, wants to see succeed - although this is partly because his opponent, Robert Cummings's good guy, is such an unlikeably bland blob of nothingness.   The film's other notable performance is from the charmingly avuncular John Williams, who plays just about the only sympathetic (and intelligent) police chief in any Hitchcock film.   Williams was the actor whom Hitchcock employed most often; he appeared in two other films - The Paradine Case (1947) and To Catch a Thief (1955) - and also ten episodes of the hit TV series Alfred Hitchcock Presents.  Not only is Dial M for Murder a great film, it's also a veritable gold mine for fans of film trivia.

Film Synopsis

When former tennis champion Tony Wendice discovers that his wife Margot has been having an affair with writer Mark Halliday he concocts what he believes to be the perfect crime.   Wendice engages a small-time crook named Swann to murder his wife one evening whilst he and Halliday are at a dinner party.  But things don't go quite as planned.  It is Swann who ends up dead, killed by Margot in self-defence.  Thanks to Wendice's quick thinking, the police are led to the conclusion that Swann was blackmailing Margot after he had stolen one of the love letters Halliday had sent her.   It is an open and shut case...