Really enjoyed this Hitchcock!! It kept me going and trying to figure out what everybody was up to :) Perfect murder just isn't as easy as it seems, right? :p
Impressive! I enjoyed the reamking of this in 'The Perfect Murder' with Michael Douglas and Gwyneth Paltrow, so was intigued to watch the original.
Filming most of this film in one place, is really creative on Hitchcock's part. It is all 'so terribly terribly British, but that certainly captures the era that the film was made in.
Dial M For Murder is a Hitchcock film based on a play. It tells the story of a man whose wife is cheating on him. His wife is quite wealthy and he is the beneficiary to her will. He attempts to have her killed by blackmailing somebody, but this plan goes all wrong and his wife kills the would-be murderer in self-defense. The man then attempts to frame his wife so it looked like she murdered him and it wasn't in self-defense at all. As this film was originally supposed to be in 3D, it is presented in two halves despite the short running time (since theaters only had 2 projectors and 3D films required 2 at once, a brief intermission was necessary to load the second half of the film). From almost right at the start until the intermission, this film is absolutely brilliant, nearly perfect. The second half, while good is far inferior to the first half. Overall, the plot is great.
As this was adapted from a stage play and makes very few changes, both the set and cast are rather small. With a few exceptions, this film takes place in a single room. Hitchcock was the master of tiny sets, and this film doesn't come off as claustrophobic at all. The film stars Ray Milland as the husband and Grace Kelly as the wife. Milland comes off as a villainous Cary Grant and is quite good. Grace Kelly is even better and is a prototypical Hitchcock blonde.
While this film isn't perfect, it's one of the better Hitchcock films I've seen. The suspense is phenomenal and despite a slight drop in quality in the second half, the way things are constantly changing at the end is brilliant. An absolute must-see.
A single room in a middle-class London flat is the residence of one of Alfred Hitchcock's greatest thrillers, Dial 'M' For Murder.
We are invited into the lives of sophisticated gentleman, Ray Milland and his trophy wife, Grace Kelly; both playing out their roles in a marriage as theatrical as the staging of the movie.
As we peer beyond the façade, we are immersed in the murky waters of betrayal and murder, which washes away Milland's charming exterior to expose a cruel egotist, bruised by the infidelity of the fragile Kelly, seeking the love and affection deficient in Milland.
This is the raw material with which Hitchcock, the master craftsman, fashions a work of consummate skill and pioneering vision, indicative of an artist in complete control of his medium.
Furthermore, great praise is due to all who collaborated on this movie (and all the others), as they are the building blocks of the pedestal upon which Hitchcock sits.
The product is a glorious amalgam of sharp editing by Rudi Fehr, expressive cinematography by Robert Burks and an overwrought music score by Dimitri Tiomkin. These elements are unified in a claustrophobic and refined thriller that manipulates us with prods of tension, dwelling on every detail for maximum impact.
The highlight of Dial 'M' For Murder is the magnificently realised attack on Grace Kelly. The darkened room conceals the evil intentions, but the creeping shadow casts an ominous threat. The edgy music gradually gathers momentum, cutting through your nerves with each thrust of the violin bow. Then, out of the darkness, echoes the forbidding ring of the telephone......The music erupts into a frenetic wail and the suspense breaks, yielding a brutal intensity that spirals out of control, before culminating with a grand finale that leaves a searing imprint on cinematic history.
Another amazing 'one-room' crime movie, he almost figured out how to do the perfect murder, he only had one little mistake. Very cool suspencing movie with allot of twists who makes this movie awesome
Enthralling plot with lots of twists.
Yet again, Hitchcock succeeds in leading the viewer to believing what he actually want them to believe, hypnotizing them for the entire act, set in just one room.
Ray Milland's improvisation, each time a thing goes wrong for him, is brilliantly written and convincing.
Remade in 1998 as "A perfect murder"
Saw this movie recently with my wife. Intriguing plot and story. Adapted from a broadway play. Hitch didn't change the story one bit, but the camera angles made the story.
My favourite Hitchcock film I have seen yet. It's fun to see how Tony shifts the attention from him... Things we learn from ths film 1) Don't cheat on your husband 2) Don't try to kil your wife
This movie is quite good, but I feel it doesn't belong in the elite class of other Hitchcock masterpieces. Still, it was enough of a classic for Hollywood to do it's usual remake, when they did so with "A Perfect Murder". We are first introduced to the situation which materializes the murder plot, when jealous and bitter husband Tony (Ray Milland) finds out his wife Margot (Grace Kelly) has fallen for another man (Robert Cummings). He discovers the affair through a letter he finds, and ends up blackmailing an old, shady college friend into murdering his wife while out of the house, thus giving him an alibi of innocence to the killing. Of course though, this does not play out perfectly as planned, and Tony is forced into an impromptu cover up once the police get involved. The most interesting portion of this movie is seeing the desperate but clever cover up attempt slowly start to dissolve as more and more clues become hard to refute. The writing here is pretty intricate and deserves most of the credit, but the acting remains stagey at times and the dialogue lengthy, as it almost spells out too much in the beginning, negating some potential suspense. Also, the film has only minimal set designs, which makes it feel a little confined, but luckily it isn't a huge problem. Although it has some minor flaws, there is still enough here to make it a minor classic in it's own right, and is worth checking out.
An ex-tennis pro carries out a plot to murder his wife. When things go wrong, he improvises a brilliant plan B.
Ray Milland: Tony Wendice
Grace Kelly: Margot Mary Wendice
Robert Cummings: Mark Halliday
This suspenseful thriller, this Dial M for Murder is a must see. Alfred Hitchcock yet again shows he was and still remains one of the first masters of film directing.
The innocence of the stunning Grace Kelly, the acting of Ray Milland, and John Williams are very good. The details unfold beautifully as you view Dial M. The plot and premise is as old as the hills but nonetheless compelling and enthralling all at the same time.
Meanwhile, another aspect of Hitchcock's films which makes them his own creation is his ability to keep the viewer glued and hypnotised without hardly any changes to the settings. This is apparent in Dial M For Murder, as in Rear Window, where most of filming is shot in a one room.
It is these elements, which make a film undoubtedly Hitchcock's own, that leaves one to puzzle over why the man perceived it to be important to place himself in mostly all of his films. Vanity maybe? Perhaps it was just for the purpose of being witty or very cocky which compelled him to be so cheeky. On the hand it might have merely been a ploy to encourage the audience, or viewer to pay more attention and try and spot him.
As to the plot of the film Dial M for Murder itself, I think it is very clever with brilliant dialogue. Also containing so many twists in Dial M that the viewer is completely led in circles by the director. Aside from the brilliantly constructed plot, the suspense and build up is astounding. Hitchcock also is in control of the actors like puppets on a string and deftly unravels the crime.
This should not be overlooked because of Hitchcock's bigger, more familiar films, as Dial M for Murder is without a doubt one of his best.
This is my favorite Hitchcock film. Ray and Grace are terrific actors in this movie, about betrayal and the outcome of it. There are many twists in this. Very mysterious.
murder mystery at its best. Instead of following the detective or good guy the story revolves around the mastermind of the whole crime who is absolutely brilliant at talking his way out of even the tightest spots.I highly recommend this to and murder mystery fans out there.
An instant classic once you watch it. The plot may seem simplistic at first, but Hitchcock adds his special touches that make it complex and a long lasting thriller.
hmm.... not bad though. but i dont think that ray milland has shown his greatest performance in this movie. he sounds too calm for a man who's planning his wife's murder. i still think milland's best in the lost weekend. the ending is somehow predictable. grace kelly, on the other hand, is great as usual. she is capable in portraying her emotions as the wife whose husband's planning to murder. so far, this movie is a worth to watch, especially for the hitchcockians out there
Il faut avouer que, progressivement, je commence un peu à me lasser de cette fameuse théorie du crime parfait qui, mine de rien, revient à peu près dans la moitié des films de Hitchcock que j'ai vu. Peut-être aurait-il été temps d'innover puisque ce classique de 1954 était loin d'être le premier genre. Mais le fait est que Knott l'a composé à la Agatha Christie, ce qui a eu tôt fait de me charmer et de m'intriguer tant l'enquête devenait complexe. Bémol majeur, par contre: je m'aperçois que, dans la majorité des films de Hitchcock, les motivations des protagonistes principaux apparaissent souvent absurdes ou injustifiées, ce qui en est venu à me déranger fortement dans mon appréciation du film.
Seule Grace Kelly offre une performance divine (sacrément) en interprétant Margot puisque son personnage passe avec succès à travers une gamme d'émotions explosive dont elle s'acquitte parfaitement. Quant aux deux principales distributions masculines, Ray Milland et Robert Cummings, il me semble qu'on aurait pu choisir mieux puisque leur jeu m'a paru défaillant et stéréotypé à plusieurs reprises...
MCT:August 31, 2008
MCT:August 23, 2008
MCT:August 16, 2008
MCT:August 12, 2008
MCT:June 28, 2008
