Watching this 1954 film by Alfred Hitchcock, I was a little surprised by how mechanical everything seemed, and how little suspense generated, and then I read this review by B. Kite of a recent revivial and found out the original release was part of that mid-’50s craze for 3-D movies. Unlike most of the movies he made, Hitchcock came on late in the game with Dial M for Murder and had less opportunity to make it his own.
Set in post-WWII London, Ray Milland plays former tennis pro Tony Wendice and the lustrous Grace Kelly his rich wife Margot, who’s having an affair with American mystery novelist Mark Halliday (played by Robert Cummings). Supporting them are John Williams (I remember him from Sabrina and To Catch a Thief) as a classic British police inspector and Anthony Dawson as one of Milland’s long-ago university classmates.
Milland uncovered the affair a year before but Cummings returned to America and is just returning to England as Dial begins; Milland has spent the year preparing and now thinks he’s plotted the perfect murder. The lovers think they’ve been discrete and one of the early scenes, with the three of them in the Wendices’ flat talking, is painfully amusing. Milland even asks the novelist if he’s come up with the perfect murder for one of his books but Cummings says such a thing is not possible in the real world.
And of course it isn’t. The plan develops cracks from the moment it goes into motion and this is where Hitchcock can work his gleefully intense magic on what began life as a minor stage play. Lighting, sounds, carefully designed movement, even purposeful looks combine to overcome the bloated, talky opening act.
recommended
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