Dial M For Murder Review

Monday, July 28, 2014

"Dial M For Murder" (1954)

Grace Kelly, Ray Milland

Directed by Alfred Hitchcock

The fifties truly were a simpler time. A man could down multiple snifters of brandy as a matter of course, smoke three packs of cigarettes indoors and wile away the hours poring over old newspaper clippings in his scrapbook. Long gone are the days of rotary phones and watches that require winding, but for the cost of two hours of my time I was able to transport myself to 1950's London as I sat down for Alfred Hitchcock's classic murder mystery adaptation "Dial M For Murder".

The story opens on retired tennis pro Tony Wendice (Ray Milland) and his wife Margot (Grace Kelly, meow), at first glance a happy mid-century couple drinking and listening to the radiola. We quickly learn of a love affair between Margot and American mystery writer Mark Halliday (Robert Cummings) in years past. Margot is being blackmailed by an anonymous man who had stolen one of her love letters and was threatening to give the letter to her husband. In spite of this, Margot and Mark seem fairly confident that Margot's husband doesn't know about them.

Tony knows. Tony knows and hes mad. The kind of mad where he's moved past hostility and anger and has moved right on to the calm and methodical orchestration of his wife's murder.

Tony calls upon a Captain Lesgate (Anthony Dawson, who is a dead ringer for Adrien Brody's father) under the false pretense of wanting to purchase an American car the captain has for sale. The two arrange to meet at Tony's flat and discuss the price of the car over drinks (as Englishmen in the fifties are like to do), but Tony has an ulterior motive that slowly starts to show its fangs: Captain Lesgate is a fraud and a criminal, and Tony has been following him eerily closely for some time. In the span of three brandies, Tony calls Lesgate (whose real name is Swann) out on who he really is, subtly details his own plot to murder Margot and collect her estate, and blackmails Swann into carrying out a most cunningly orchestrated murder. However, so-called "perfect murders" are often anything but, and when the plan inevitably goes south, Tony is forced to improvise to cover his tracks.

Originally an adaptation of a successful Tony award winning play that ran for 552 performances in 1952, "Dial M For Murder" was filmed in a "roadshow" format that features an intermission at about the halfway mark of the film. The film is shot and directed to appear much like the play after which it is based (the set for the Wendice's apartment is where the bulk of the film takes place, and it is configured much like it would be if it were on a theatre stage) which isn't necessarily a bad thing, but for a child of the digital age with a distractibility streak like me it means long periods of slowly tumbling dialogue and countless opportunities for zoning out and missing relevant details. Luckily, this was a murder mystery, which traditionally has a big bow put on it at the end when the detective spells out the mystery for the other characters who only partially understood all along (see the unmasking at the end of any Scooby Doo Mystery episode and you'll know exactly what I mean)

All in all, this movie's plot ran like a Swiss watch from start to finish. Hitchcock uses color, light, and shadow to thoroughly enhance scenes of suspense or to elucidate a characters declining state ( for example, Grace Kelly starts the movie in a beautiful bright red dress, and by the final scene her character is wearing a conservative grey number buttoned to the throat). The experience was entertaining and surprisingly fulfilling. I was even delighted to find myself exhaling a satisfied "a-ha" when the inspector started to finally piece the whole mystery together in the last minutes. The American Film Institute ranks this film as #9 on their list of top 10 Mystery films, and I think it is deserving of at least that.

I give "Dial M For Murder" 4/5 dials