Despite being labelled a Master of Suspense who regularly delved into the dark recesses of the human psyche in thrillers concerning murder, deceit and scandal, Alfred Hitchcock never was one to rest on his laurels. As his fame rose and his movies became ever more elaborate, he rarely opted to do anything as predictable as a simple as a basic murder mystery, choosing instead to take the established norms of the genre and plot its demise with a fiendishly complex plan.
It’s with this firmly in mind that we approach his tricksy, 1954, effort that took the basic rules of a whodunit and puts you right in the centre of the it. Why wait until the end of the movie to find out how a murder was done, the director presumably reasoned, when we can watch it unravel as it happens? Armed with an adaption of the stage play by Frederick Knott, it was time to pick up the phone and Dial M For Murder…
On the surface, wealthy socialite Margot Wendice and her tennis player husband, Tony, seem perfectly happy as they live the life of Riley, but like most Hitchcock couples, the gooey centre has grown black and corrupted. You see, while the selfish Tony play nice, he really only seems to have married his wife for the money, which allowed him to keep playing tennis while she supported him, but ever since he found out Margot’s secret, he’s been playing extra nice in order to bide his time.
You see, about a year prior, Margot had an affair with American crime novelist and their mutual friend, Mark Halliday (Dial A For Adultery?), but called it off when Tony finally ditched swinging a racket and finally got a proper job. However, this is all a ludicrously complex ruse, as Tony knows all about their liaison due to the fact that he managed to gain possession of one of their love letters as proof and when Mark comes to visit, he finally decides to spring his trap.
Roping in an unsuspecting old acquaintance from his college days, he ensnares moustachioed con-artist and man of many alias’, Charles Swann, into his web of schemes as lays out his plan.
The concept is simple, all he requires Swann to do is be in the correct place at the correct time and Tony will orchestrate it that Margot will answer the phone at an exact moment, allowing the would-be murderer to emerge from behind the living room curtain and throttle her to death with a scarf. However, while the concept is simple, the execution will require crackerjack timing from all involved as Tony has seemingly planned for every occurrence (Dial C For Control Freak, eh?). Manuvered and manipulated into the deed, Swann agrees, but on the night the murder is supposed to occur, something goes wrong that Tony didn’t account for and has to desperately plan on the fly if he’s ever going to get his hands on Margot’s money.
Those expecting a rip-roaring, Hitchcockian mystery that either has the shocks of Vertigo, the drive of North By Northwest or even the unrelenting tension of The Birds, may find that Dial M For Murder something of a static affair that sees the majority of its very talky action take place in a single room – and while this makes sense considering its origins as a play, it proves to be a very more contained movie than, say, Psycho. So what’s the hook then, because if we’ve learned anything from Hitch over the years, the guy loved a hook. Well, it’s simple really, the main narrative thread of the film is taking an audience who is used to being on the outside of a murder mystery and instead plonks them right in the same room as the machiavellian Tony clues Swann, and, in turn, us, on the cruel, spiteful shit he has planned for his unfaithful wife (Dial F For Fuckery). As a result, this has a rather strange effect on us, the viewers, as we watch the numerous parts of Wendice’s plan snap into place, we find ourselves curiously in league with a man so punchably smug, the character might as well been named Hugh Briss to really get the point across. And yet, as vehemently hissable as Ray Milland’s character is, because we’ve been invited to get on at the ground floor with his dastardly plan, we almost take ownership of it to impressive effect.
This is never more evident than with the film’s first, big twist where (Dial S For Spoilers!), Grace Kelly’s delicate Margot manages to fend of her attacker-for-hire by plunging a pair of scissors into Swann back while he chokes the life from her. While we eventually realise that our emotions should cheer as the victimized woman saves her life, your initial thought (be honest) is “oh shit” as Hitch has made you so invested in the plan, that your first urge when things go tits up is to panic. And so it continues, as Tony continues to alter his masterplan, you certainly want him to come a cropper, but at the same time you audibly gasp when things go wrong as the difference between wanting the plan to work and wanted the bastard to be caught becomes almost indivisible. It’s an audacious turn of events that recalls the wonderful scene in Psycho where a car containing a body pauses while sinking into a swamp and for that exact moment, you are entirely on the side of Norman Bates.
However, even though the movie is acted beautifully, there’s that issue that the film is just so wordy, that Hitch is unable to lock into those visual gymnastics that managed to change the face of Hollywood. Oh, that ambitious eye is still there, of course; in order to lock down the geography of the the room in question, watch the director helpfully switch to a single long shot that follows Tony around the room. Elsewhere, the fatal stabbing of Swann almost singlehandedly births the complicated kills of the Giallo genre when, rather than catching the scissors in the back and immediately expiring, Anthony Dawson (racking up those rotter roles along with the duplicitous Dent from Dr. No) stumbles and falls on the pointy things in question which push them in even further.
But, thankfully, the sheer weight of dialogue (Dial E For Exposition) is rendered deceptively light by the verbal dexterity of the script and the quality of the actors delivering those lines. As we’ve already mentioned, Milland inhabits his pompous plotter with aplomb, while Dawson’s murderous opportunist is similarly boo worthy, Robert Cummings’ Mark is a little surplus to requirements and Grace Kelly’s margot is little more than a put upon victim. However, picking up the slack for the good guys with some incredible bluster is John Williams’ Chief Inspector, whose stuffy demeanor hides a keen mind.
While certainly not as lively as some of Hitchcock’s other deep dives into reprehensible (but fun) crimes, the direction, the performances and the script all come together to ensure that Dial M for Murder is most definately not a call you should miss.
🌟🌟🌟🌟
We Have Issues 