Movies - Dial M for Murder

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	Movies - Dial M for Murder

Dial M for Murder (1954) is a U.S. film directed by Alfred Hitchcock starring Grace Kelly and Ray Milland as a married couple. It is based on the stage play of the same title by English playwright Frederick Knott (b. 1918). Dial M for Murder premiered in 1952 as a BBC television play before being performed on the stage in the same year (West End, June; Broadway, October.)

The 1954 film was shot in full color "Naturalvision" 3D against the judgement of Hitchcock. The original Naturalvision system, required two projectors operating simultaneously in exact sync. Only a few presentations of the film occurred in 1954, due to the complexity of the process. Later, a single projector 3D version was re-released in the 1980s.

The screenplay for the film was written by Knott himself and is almost identical with the stage play (Samuel French acting edition ISBN 0573011028). Knott, who moved to the U.S.A. in 1954, has only written one other well-known play, Wait Until Dark
(1966), which was filmed in 1967. Generally, Knott's work tends to focus on women who innocently become the focus, and the potential victims, of evil plots.

There is just one setting in the play of Dial M for Murder: the living-room of the Wendices' flat in London (61A Charrington Gardens, Maida Vale) (Hitchcock's film includes a second setting in a restaurant, almost halfway through the film when Tony is waiting for it to be time to call home.)

Plot

Tony Wendice is a former tennis player who has succeeded in marrying Sheila (called Margot in the movie) only for her money, without the naïve young woman realizing that. To please his wife, he has given up tennis and now has a job selling sports equipment. Sheila is not in love with her husband though: She had a relationship with Max (called Mark in the movie) Halliday (played by Robert Cummings in the movie), a crime writer for American TV, but they broke it off when Max went to the U.S.A. for one year. Eventually, they also stopped writing each other.

As Tony and Sheila have both made their wills, with each other as the beneficiary, Tony decides that after Max has left for America the time has come to act: For one year, he meticulously plans Sheila's murder. Sheila has no idea that Tony knows all about her relationship to, and love for, Max, but he does: He went to great lengths to steal his own wife's handbag containing one of Max's letters, and then he even assumed the role of an anonymous Brixton-based blackmailer to find out whether his wife was prepared to pay any amount of money for the retrieval of the letter (she did, but he only asked for £50). He even watched them having a little farewell party (eating spaghetti with mushrooms) in Max's studio flat in Chelsea.

In order not to arouse any suspicion, Tony withdraws small amounts of money for a year—always more than he and his wife need to live—and this way collects £1,000 in (used) one pound notes. This is the money he wants to pay the contract killer with. He also singles out the perfect man to do the job: C A Swann, who now calls himself "Captain Lesgate", an old schoolmate of his who embarked on a life of petty crime already when they were at school together. Tony knows that now he will be able to blackmail Swann into murdering his wife.

When the action starts Tony's careful preparations have been going on for a year. Now he uses the opportunity of Max's return to London to carry out his plan. Under some pretext—he has to prepare an urgent report for his boss—he has Sheila and Max go to the theatre and, when they are gone, he invites Swann round to his flat under another pretext—wanting to buy an expensive American car from him. When Swann arrives at 61A Charrington Gardens that Friday night, Tony gets down to business very quickly. There is no time to lose, as he has planned the murder for the following night. Finally, Swann accepts the deal.

For Saturday night, Tony has invited Max to join him at some stag party in a nearby hotel—this is how he secures himself an alibi. The idea is that the police should think that a burglar was surprised by Sheila, that he panicked, attacked and strangled her and left without the loot. He has told Swann that he is going to phone his own flat at exactly 11 p.m. Sheila will come to the living-room to answer the phone, and then she will be murdered by Swann. There are only two keys to the Wendices' ground floor flat. Before leaving for the stag party, Tony steals Sheila's key out of her handbag and hides it under the stair carpet outside their flat for Swann to use.

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