Running Time. 1 hour 45 mins
Director. Alfred Hitchcock
Cast. Robert Cummings, Anthony Dawson, Grace Kelly, Ray Milland, John Williams.
In 1954, Alfred Hitchcock left Warner Brothers Studios for Paramount Pictures and for the next decade, whilst with Paramount Pictures, Alfred Hitchcock released some of his most impressive work - Rear Window (1954), To Catch A Thief (1955), Vertigo (1958) and Psycho (1960). Dial M For Murder was the final film Hitchcock directed for Warner Brothers Studios.
Based on a successful stage play written by Frederick Knott, Dial M For Murder unveils Tony Wendice's (Ray Milland) perfect plan to have his adulterous wife, Margot (Grace Kelly), murdered in order that he can collect on her life insurance. The intricate screenplay is entirely all plot, none of the characters are developed any further than the absolute minimum for the storyline to function.
Whilst Ray Milland is wonderful, as the conniving and calculated former tennis professional, it is Grace Kelly that steals the show. This was her first collaboration with Hitchcock and she would appear in two more of the director's films - Rear Window, released in the same year, and To Catch A Thief the following year. Deliberately dressed in light, colourful outfits early in the film, Margot's wardrobe becomes more sombre and heavier in the second half of the film, as she becomes a suspect. The attempted murder scene in Dial M For Murder - with Grace Kelly's neck bulging over the tourniquet as she struggles - is every bit as terrifying, if not more so, than the more famous murder scene in Psycho.
There's a static, theatrical feel to Dial M For Murder. The exterior scenes use a substandard back projection of a London street which only serves to further highlight the film's theatricality. Characters are confined to two film locations, and predominantly one room in a small apartment in Maida Vale, West London. The telephone dial code for Maida Vale was M, giving the film its title. Hitchcock believed there was no need to extend the scope of the story and the claustrophobic setting certainly does not affect the pace of the film. The director employed a similar technique in an earlier film, Rope and the subsequent Rear Window. This constraint allows Hitchcock to play with space and experiment with unusual camera techniques, such as the occasional high-angled shot mixed in with the low-angle shot or the hidden cut to create the illusion of a single unbroken shot.
Many critics at the time felt Alfred Hitchcock was indifferent towards and disinterested in Dial M For Murder. After all, this was the film he owed Warner Brothers Studios. The director himself, described his direction in the film, as "playing it safe" in Francois Truffaut's A Definitive Study Of Alfred Hitchcock. The director's next film, his first for Paramount Pictures, would be Rear Window, an undisputed masterpiece. Even if Dial M For Murder isn't among the director's very best work, the film highlights how good he was when he was operating on autopilot.
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