The same year (1954) Grace Kelly starred in Hitchcock\u2019s \u201cRear Window\u201d she appeared in another Hitchcock film \u201cDial M for Murder.\u201d\u00a0 This one is also a claustrophobic apartment centered drama.\u00a0 This one takes place in London and Kelly is Margot Wendice unhappily married to Tony played by Ray Milland.\u00a0 She has an American boyfriend Mark Halliday played by Robert Cummings.\u00a0 Tony is aware of the affair and has a plan to eliminate his wife but keep her money.\u00a0 He plans her murder to occur at their apartment while he is at a party with Mark thus providing himself with a strong alibi.\u00a0 He blackmails an old acquaintance of his from college, Charles Swann, who is a small time criminal, to commit the murder for him.\u00a0 He gives Swann the key to the apartment and designates a time when he will call his wife to lure her into the darkened living room where Swann can strangle her.<\/p>\n
The machinations around the crime and the details of its failure make for the complexity of the second act.\u00a0 While being strangled Margot manages to grab a pair of scissors and plunge them in Swann\u2019s back.\u00a0 After Swann expires, Tony recovers from the failure and without missing a beat tells Margot over the phone to wait until he gets home to call the police.<\/p>\n
Tony manages to tamper with evidence and clue in the police to blackmail evidence that paints Swann\u2019s death as Margot killing her blackmailer.\u00a0 She is subsequently charged with murder, tried, convicted and sentenced to death.\u00a0 The third act involves Chief Inspector Hubbard\u2019s investigation of the facts of the crime and his clever trap for the real killer.<\/p>\n
So, this sounds like a pretty standard British murder mystery story.\u00a0 It is.\u00a0 But the thing that elevates it is Ray Milland\u2019s work.\u00a0 He is extremely entertaining as the clever, manipulative and thoroughly affable Tony Wendice.\u00a0 In every scene, except those with John Williams\u2019 Inspector Hubbard character, Tony dominates the screen and the atmosphere.\u00a0 He manipulates the other characters easily and expertly.\u00a0 They don\u2019t even realize after the fact that he\u2019s been working against them.\u00a0 Grace Kelly and Robert Cummings do a competent job of performing their parts.\u00a0 John Williams does a slightly over the top portrayal of a senior British police detective with his Oxbridge accent and proper mustache brush.\u00a0 But it is Ray Milland that makes this movie so much fun for me.\u00a0 He is delightfully evil, a suave friendly devil.\u00a0 And Hitchcock did his best to make the staging enhance the choreography of the crime and also the crucial finale that completes this filmed play.\u00a0 And finally, once again I think Hitchcock\u2019s English roots allows him to stage American actors as Brits but to still capture the essence of the British drawing room murder mystery.\u00a0 And all this without even a butler to be framed for the crime.<\/p>\n
Well done Sir Alfred.\u00a0 I give this my highest rating for excellent entertainment value.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The same year (1954) Grace Kelly starred in Hitchcock\u2019s \u201cRear Window\u201d she appeared in another Hitchcock film \u201cDial M for Murder.\u201d\u00a0 This one is also<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[239,238,237],"tags":[494,1284,1216,1229,1282,1283],"class_list":["post-3950","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-movie-reviews","category-classic-movie-reviews","category-reviews","tag-alfred-hitchcock","tag-british-murder-mystery","tag-dial-m-for-murder","tag-grace-kelly","tag-ray-milland","tag-robert-cummings"],"yoast_head":"\n