Dial M for Murder (1954)
Review of Dial M for Murder (1954), directed by Alfred Hitchcock
One of the strangest facts about me is that, somehow, I know so many Grace Kelly facts but have never actually seen a Grace Kelly movie until Rear Window. Hell, I even watched that really terrible movie called Grace of Monaco where Hitchcock spends a chunk of the movie just begging Grace to come back to Hollywood for just one more movie.
And that’s what I was thinking of as I saw this while scrolling through Kanopy on a muggy Wednesday. In the middle of a hurricane. I totally wasn’t dumb and completely missed the tornado warning that came onto my phone. I guess that shows you how invested I was into this movie.
I also didn’t realize at first this was a Hitchcock movie, showing how dumb and slightly uneducated I am in the world of Hitchcock. It took a long time for me to watch a Hitchcock film (aka: a serious film class) too. Anyways this is a crime mystery with thriller elements starring some of the greatest giants of Classic Hollywood, all of whom are now dead.
Man, I’d kill to see Grace Kelly in real life. Or Audrey Hepburn in her prime. This is an entertaining movie besides the star-studded cast, so let’s dig deeper into why this is the case.
Content
I’ve watched a weird amount of movies from this era with a similar plot; specifically some older 1940s films with the classic femme fatale archetype. Perhaps it’s because Hollywood knows what sells, hm? Anyways the premise of this film is that Grace Kelly’s character, Margot, is a wealthy socialite who’s cheating on her husband with a crime fiction writer. I’m so surprised that she’d pick a fiction writer over her husband, the former golfer.
I mean I get that writers in general are all sexy human beings, but I guess if you’re bored of your husband you’re bored of him. Doesn’t excuse her behavior, but then we find our her husband is actually plotting murder her so he can have some (or all) of that sweet socialite coin. What a pleasant marriage these two have!
Grace Kelly does an insanely good job in her role because guess what? Even though she’s the one cheating on her husband, you really begin to care for and root for her character.
Almost the entirety of the film is set in a single room, which requires a masterful eye in the name of blocking and movement. If you’re not careful with a one setting-film, then your viewers might get sick of the setting if they’re not completely absorbed into the story.
This was originally a play and apparently the entirety of the dialogue is the same as the play, which explains the decision to kind of keep this one-setting act on the screen. It’s like watching a play, but on the screen, as characters weave in and out of the scenes. And then it just keeps getting darker and darker as we move through the sequence of events.
We get this meticulous year-long planning of Margot’s murder, but, as she’s unaware of it, we see ironic moments that are major foreshadow such as on the night of her death, her husband kisses her and tells her goodbye.
There’s little pockets in the film that can be humorous depending on your sense of humor—which I found funny. I like to enjoy myself during a film, and I really did for this one. Hitchcock is known for how he works the camera as a director, and so that’s a treat to watch to on how he chooses his shot, blocks, and then zooms in or does a close-up.
I could also very much tell that this movie was made in 1954 by a man, because the wife in this movie is a helpless victim outside of her cheating on her husband. She blindly agrees to play the games the men are playing and then ends up in jail and on death row because of it. She needs to be rescued by the male figure of her romantic life from her death. And, at the same time, nothing is said about her cheating and having to leave her husband. But it’s okay for her husband to murder her?
Overall Thoughts
This was a solid film. It had a good screenplay, extremely good acting, and, with Hitchcock behind the camera, it’s a visual treat. It’s not as well known as some of Hitchcock’s other films, but I think this one is pretty up there too. Having seen both Rear Window and Dial M for Murder, I think that Hitchcock and Grace Kelly are a formidable pair when combined in a movie.
It’s a shame that she quit acting to live the royalty life, but if it’s love it’s love at the end of the day. But not just Kelly was great in this movie; special shoutout to the male lead as well. You really get sucked into this movie and time just flies by.
