Review of Dial M for Murder (1954) by Paul Z — 03 Sep 2008

Dial M For Murder is superior Hitchcock, not because of how much it embodies him, but because of how much it embodies what he is attracted to, the remarkably impressive perfectionism in a deed of malice, an ideal occasion for him to apply his own perfectionist style. Hitchcock was not a perfectionist in the sense that he was a refined, nitpicky gentleman of poise. He was in fact a shameless attention hog with a snooty English comportment. The perfectionism in his film-making comes from the same place that generates his never-ending need to appear on his own TV show, interviews, at some point at any cost during each and every one of his movies (this time, due to the story's confined setting, in a black-and-white reunion photograph), and even as the on-screen guide in the trailers of his later movies: An inexhaustible pride on his accomplishments, pure and obsessive joy taken by his prolific mastery of a challenging cinematic effect, suspense. This approach to perfectionism meets halfway with writer Frederick Knott's mature and controlled perfectionism. Knott details a rigid, clockwork scenario upon which Hitchcock magnifies just how inspired Knott's script is.

Ray Milland plays the lead role with the same capacity for darkness and wickedness that he brought so stunningly to The Lost Weekend, another top-notch picture in which one would never have guessed for a minute that he was British. Well, here, he implies that he told you so, as he brandishes his classic native accent in his wicked portrayal of an ex-tennis player who impeccably hides his ulterior motives for having married the angelic Grace Kelly. For a solid year, Milland carefully and methodically plans her murder once they've named each other as beneficiary in their respective wills. She has no semblance of a clue that he is at all aware of her love for an American crime writer.

The extent to which Milland effortlessly goes to polish every facet of a facet of his plot is astounding, we learn. He has gone to great lengths to steal a handbag holding one of the adulterous American's letters, and even simulated the role of an anonymous blackmailer to observe whether she would pay to have it back. He even surveyed them having a little farewell party in the American's studio flat, remembering even what they ate for dinner.

Knott's firm and intricate narrative is as tight as a drum, infused with snappy complexity and even the humor and rhetoric grandeur residual from the original theatre production. Hitchcock emboldens the visual bearing of the movie. He cries, "I'm here, too!" with scenes shot entirely through a bird's eye view from the ceiling, and in his decidedly superstylized impression of a courtroom scene, with no props but lighting of various alternating colors.

One example of a scene that streams seamlessly from one eye-bustingly gripping scene to another is one constructed entirely out of the technical aftermath of cinematography and editing, when we see Milland, repressing his anxiety for appearance's sake to an outer shell of petty restlessness, frequently looking at his watch. It is already past eleven when he notices that it has stopped. This is the unraveling arrangement of a minuscule race versus time swelled by theatrical music. Hitchcock's unabashed pandering for the status as his film's main character in spite of being on the wrong side of the camera for that ambition is actually an incidental charm, as opposed to the outcome of many self-conscious overstylized movies. You are a true artiste when your biggest weaknesses enhance your work, in this case by creating an inimitable spirit that permeates it.