Film review: Dial M For Murder (1954)

We've seen this one before, but for the life of me I could not remember much about it, which is surprising, because, after a slow start, this clicks into gear and just doesn't stop.  It's gripping and plotted tighter than a drum, and Ray Milland is a fantastic bad guy.  It is very obviously based on a play, though, and it occurred to me while watching it that Hitchcock has two subgenres of his films that are pretty much diametrically opposed.  There's the man (or often couple)-on-the-run ones (39 Steps, Young and Innocent, Saboteur, North by Northwest, Torn Curtain), and then there's the single-location ones (Lifeboat, Rope, Rear Window and this one).  It's a mark of Hitchcock's genius that he can make the latter as gripping as the former.  This one is very talky, and really I have to say it's carried by its English cast - Milland as the ex-profession-tennis-player turned current murder-plotter Tony Wendice, and the unknown-to-me (apart from the time I watched this before, and I guess he's also in Sabrina, To Catch a Thief, and The Solid Gold Cadillac) John "not the film composer" Williams, as Chief Inspector Hubbard of Scotland Yard 

(did I mention it's set in London?).  Rounding out our central four characters (really, there's only one other important role) are Grace Kelly (doing a not-terrible but very distracting received pronunciation English accent) and the rather anonymous obligatory American lug Robert Cummings (who plays the lead in Saboteur, which is one of my least favorite Hitchcocks) as Mark Halliday.  It's sort of funny that Cummings is playing a writer, while Milland is playing the (ex-) athlete, when really each is much more plausible as the other profession.  However, you have to have Milland play the villain, because he's wonderful.  He has such demonic eyes 

it's one of those instances where you can't see why the other characters can't see the evil oozing out of every pore, except that, of course, he's so suave and charming.  His suavity is sorely tested, though, as a fair number of things go wrong for him, however what's so impressive is the way he recalibrates on the fly.  You think he's getting away with it, too, except that the rather bluff Chief Inspector proves to be more than his equal.

Really, you have to think that the makers of Columbo essentially ripped this film off, because Hubbard does all the Columbo tricks of appearing to be convinced by Wendice's lies and even at one point is half out the door before he stops, turns around and says "there is just one more thing, sir..."

Anyway, very quick synopsis: after a beginning where we see Grace Kelly and Ray Milland in apparent connubial bliss at breakfast, when she reads 

that "a friend" (Cummings) is arriving by boat.  Cut to later when hubby is out and Kelly and Cummings are lip-locked.  It's not what it seems, though, because she tells him that, although she was ready to leave Tony when Mark was in London a year ago, he has since changed totally.  He gave up tennis to become a full-time husband and has been nothing if not uxorious.  Halliday is full of regret, but ready to give up, except that she tells him that she's burned every one of his letters "but one".  "When not that one?" he asks, hopefully.  Well, it turns out she carried it around in her handbag until said bag was stolen and she since got anonymous letters threatening to blackmail her.  Anyway, at this point Tony returns and everybody acts civil.  Cut to the next day (I think) and they're all planning to go out together to a play, for which Tony has bought 3 tickets, when he says that he can't go because his boss has demanded a report that will take him most of the night to write (and that's with making most of it up).  So they go off together... and at this point the film really kicks into gear, with Tony placing a call about buying a car, and asking the seller to come to him, because he's "twisted his knee."  Well, the person who shows up 

doesn't know him (at first) but Tony knows him, and what he knows will pressure said person into murdering Kelly's Margot.  Or, at least, attempting to.  

 But things go wrong,

but Tony makes the first and cleverest of his changes-of-plans so that things work out almost as well as if Margot had been killed.  

Then the entire second half of the film is a cat-and-mouse game, where the mouse doesn't know what the cat knows...until it's too late.  Definitely top-tier Hitchcock - I recommend (even if "WarnerColor" is a bit garish, I have to say).