Dial M for Murder
Dial M for Murder is a 1954 American crime thriller film directed by Alfred Hitchcock, starring Ray Milland, Grace Kelly, Robert Cummings, Anthony Dawson, and John Williams. Both the screenplay and the successful stage play on which it was based were written by English playwright Frederick Knott. 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.
Originally intended to be shown in dual-strip polarized 3-D, the film played in most cinemas in ordinary 2-D owing to the loss of interest in the 3-D process by the time of its release. The film earned an estimated $2.7 million in North American box office sales in 1954.
Plot
Tony Wendice, a retired English professional tennis player, is married to wealthy socialite Margot, who has been having an affair with 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.Charles Swann, an old acquaintance of Tony's from Cambridge University, is a small-time con man with a criminal record. Having tracked Swan's activities for some time, Tony invites Swann to his Maida Vale flat on a pretext and tells him about Margot's affair. Tony confides that six months previously he had stolen Margot's handbag, which contained a love letter from Mark, and had anonymously blackmailed her. Tricks Swann into leaving his fingerprints on the blackmail letter, Tony effectively entrappings him. He then threatens to expose Swann as the blackmailer unless he agrees to kill 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 at home alone. At a specific time when Margot is certain to be in bed, Swann will enter the unlocked front door of the building and will open the door of the flat with Margot's latchkey, which Tony will hide on the staircase under a carpet. When Tony telephones the flat from the party, 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 put the key back under the staircase carpet as he leaves.
The following night, Swann enters the flat, and Tony rings as planned. When Margot answers 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 expected 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.
The next day, Tony persuades Margot not to reveal that he told her not to call the police. Chief Inspector Hubbard arrives to question the Wendices, and Margot makes several conflicting statements. When Hubbard says the evidence indicates that Swann entered through the front door, Tony claims that Swann must have been responsible for stealing Margot's old handbag, and made a copy of her key. As Tony intends, Hubbard does not believe the story and arrests Margot after concluding that she killed Swann for blackmailing her. At her trial, Margot is found guilty of murder and sentenced to death.
Months later, on the day before Margot's scheduled execution, Mark visits Tony, saying he has devised a story for him to tell the police to save Margot. Mark's "story" is very close to what actually happened: that Tony paid Swann to kill Margot. If Tony confesses to Mark's story, Tony would go to jail for a while, but Margot would be saved. Hubbard arrives unexpectedly, and Mark hides in the bedroom. Hubbard asks Tony about large sums of cash he has been spending around town, tricks Tony into revealing that his latchkey is in his raincoat, and inquires about Tony's attaché case. Tony claims to have misplaced the case, but Mark, overhearing the conversation, finds it on the bed, full of banknotes. Deducing that the money was Tony's intended payoff to Swann, Mark confronts Tony and explains his theory to Hubbard. Tony "confesses" that the cash was Margot's blackmail payment to Swann, which he had concealed to protect her. Hubbard appears to accept Tony's explanation, and Mark leaves angrily. Hubbard discreetly swaps his own raincoat with Tony's. As soon as Tony leaves, Hubbard uses Tony's key to re-enter the flat, followed by Mark. Hubbard had previously discovered that the key in Margot's handbag was Swann's own latchkey and deduced that Swann had put the Wendices' key back in its hiding place right after unlocking the door, instead of when the job was done. Now, correctly suspecting Tony of having conspired with Swann, Hubbard has developed an elaborate ruse to trap him.
Plain clothes police officers bring Margot from prison to the flat. She tries unsuccessfully to unlock the door with the key in her handbag, then enters through the garden, proving to Hubbard that she is unaware of the hidden key and is therefore innocent. Hubbard has Margot's handbag returned to the police station, where Tony retrieves it after discovering that he has no key. The key from Margot's bag does not work, so he uses the hidden key to open the door, demonstrating his guilt and exonerating Margot. With his escape routes blocked by Hubbard and another policeman, Tony calmly makes himself a drink and congratulates Hubbard.
Cast
- 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
- George Leigh as Detective Williams
- George Alderson as First Detective
- Robin Hughes as Police Sergeant
- Martin Milner as policeman outside Wendice flat
Production
According to his biographer Donald Spoto, Hitchcock was not enthusiastic about the film, and Spoto quotes Grace Kelly to the effect that "the only reason could remain calm was that he was already preparing his next picture, Rear Window".
Mark's name was changed for the film; in the original play, he was Max Halliday. Actors Dawson and Williams reprise their Broadway roles as Swann/Captain Lesgate and Inspector Hubbard, respectively.
Cummings had previously made Saboteur for Hitchcock.
Alfred Hitchcock's cameo is a signature occurrence in most of his films. In Dial M for Murder, he can be seen thirteen minutes into the film, in a black-and-white reunion photograph, sitting at a banquet table among former students and faculty.
Release
Dial M for Murder was shot using Warner Bros.' own proprietary 3-D camera rig, the so-called All-Media Camera. After one preview performance on May 18 and four showings on May 19, a Philadelphia theater manager frantically contacted the studio and said that people were staying away in droves. He asked for permission to drop the 3-D and show the film flat.The Philadelphia Inquirer reported on May 23 that the "first audiences proved to be a jury that could not only make up its mind, but could make it up in a hurry. In exhibitors' own terms, ‘DIAL M’ literally died. And after just four performances on Wednesday, some long-distance telephoning to report complaints, the increasing skimpiness of customers—a good many of them making no bones of their dissatisfaction—permission was given to throw away the glasses and hastily switch to the 2-D version. Whereupon business at the Randolph took a turn for the better."
Dial M for Murder marked the end of the brief flirtation with 3-D films of the early 1950s. Hitchcock said of 3-D: "It's a nine-day wonder, and I came in on the ninth day."
The dual-strip system was used for the February 1980 revival of the film in 3D at the York Theater in San Francisco, California. This revival performed so well that Warner Bros. did a limited national re-release of the film in February 1982 using Chris Condon's single-strip StereoVision 3-D system. The re-release included a sold-out engagement at the Detroit Institute of Arts.
The film was shown in 3D in some UK cinemas during the summer of 2013 and in Italy at the beginning of fall of the same year.
Warner Bros. released Dial M for Murder as a 3D Blu-ray on October 9, 2012.
Reception
of The New York Times described the film as a "technical triumph" for Hitchcock, in a favourable review. "It is one for which he needed good actors. He has them—and the best of the lot is John Williams, late of the stage play, who is the detective who solves the sinister ruse." Variety wrote: "There are a number of basic weaknesses in the set-up that keep the picture from being a good suspense show for any but the most gullible. Via the performances and several suspense tricks expected of Hitchcock, the weaknesses are glossed over to some extent but not enough to rate the film a cinch winner." Harrison's Reports wrote that the film "shapes up as no more than a mild entertainment, despite the expert direction of Hitchcock and the competent acting of the players. The chief weakness is that the action is slow, caused by the fact that the story unfolds almost entirely by dialogue."Richard L. Coe of The Washington Post called the film "completely choice", with Williams and Dawson "smooth as silk in reprising their stage roles", adding, "Hitch has a field day with his camera angles, darting our eyes now here, now there, doing tingling tricks with shadows and long longshots in quick contrast to fuzzed close-ups. It's the work of a master enjoying his script." John McCarten of The New Yorker wrote a generally positive review, writing that he wished the script would give Hitchcock "a chance to cut loose with one of those spectacular chases he used to specialise in", but finding that after a talky opening 30 minutes, "things speed up once the murder wheels are set in motion, and eventually the piece becomes grimly diverting". The Monthly Film Bulletin wrote that the film "offers the prolific Hitchcock little more than an opportunity to carpenter a neat piece of filmed theatre—an opportunity which perhaps satisfied the master a little more than it does us... The characters are fitted to their situations, and hardly exist in themselves ; only John Williams' dry, sardonic police inspector has a touch of individuality."
In 2012, The Guardian called the film "a taut, acidly funny thriller".
The film was listed by American Film Institute in 2001 in AFI's 100 Years...100 Thrills, and in 2008 in AFI's 10 Top 10.