Dial M for Murder

DIAL M FOR MURDER – made in 3D          A-  
2D version             B+    

USA  (105 mi)  1954  d:  Alfred Hitchcock 

They talk about flat-footed policemen. May the saints protect us from the gifted amateur.   
 —Scotland Yard Chief Inspector Hubbard (John Williams)

Having seen this film in both versions, a preference exists for watching Grace Kelly in 3D, who passionately kisses two different men in the opening two minutes of the movie, where Hitchcock often makes humorous use of objects in the room, flooding the foreground with clever 3D objects, like lamps or flower vases, which add an extra layer of delight to this otherwise one-roomed apartment chamber drama.  Even as you watch the usual movie format, one recalls the use of 3D objects which are otherwise just decorative objects onscreen and part of the interior production design.  Adapted from a highly popular and successful play by the English playwright, Frederick Knott, where much like ROPE (1948), most all of the action takes place in a single living room in London, though shot completely on the Warner Brother’s studio lot in Burbank, yet still given that erudite, British murder mystery, whodunit style flair that Hitchcock relished.  This is the first of three films where Hitchcock used Grace Kelly, also REAR WINDOW (1954) and TO CATCH A THIEF (1955), perhaps the best example of a Hitchcock heroine, smart, gorgeous, and blond, retaining an icy cool demeanor that he must have loved to torture, as he was always tempted to break down that outer barrier of resistance, perhaps perfecting the technique with Tippi Hedron in The Birds (1963), forced to endlessly retake the gruesome final attack scene.  Hitchcock wanted to bring Kelly back for Marnie (1964), but that wasn’t possible once Prince Rainier of Monaco discovered the character she was supposed to play was a sexually repressed, compulsive liar and thief.  Here she is Margot, a deliciously lovely socialite, but a woman of independent wealth which in itself is an object of desire, where her beauty is often ignored as men typically struggle with their inner demons trying to refrain from their lust for money, where the temptation is often too great.  A great many dramas are framed around a love triangle, and this one is no different, one who cynically marries her for her money, Ray Milland as Tony, a former professional tennis player, something of a smooth talking charmer in the William Powell vein, a guy who loves to act with a drink in his hand, and Robert Cummings as Mark, who interestingly worked for Hitchcock a decade earier in SABOTEUR (1942), the young and impetuous lover who still believes in gallantry and noble ideas and brings out a more passionate side of Margot, perhaps his real crime in Mark’s eyes. 

In the opening sequence, Mark, a mystery crime writer and Margot’s supposedly secret lover, is arriving in London from America, ready to announce their unbreakable bond to Tony, but Margot hesitates, claiming Tony’s demeanor has changed, that he’s been more supportive.  No sooner do the words get out of her mouth than the real truth comes out, always over cocktails, where Tony whisks Mark and his unsuspecting wife off to the theater together in a supposed act of gentlemanly friendship, claiming he has too much work to catch up on, when really he has shady intentions, calling Captain Lesgate, aka Swann (Anthony Dawson), presumably to purchase a car.  Instead Tony goes on a lengthy ramble of deviously clever logic and meticulously accurate background storylines, all connecting Swann, a man of many aliases, to a nefarious underworld lifestyle of schemes and petty crimes, including a college class photo with a small group of friends, where Hitchcock is sitting proudly in the picture.  The gist of it all is Tony wants the man to kill his wife, proposing a supposedly foolproof plan that makes it sound almost too easy, where Tony stands to inherit a considerable fortune.  Threatened with exposure of his secretive lifestyle, Swann goes along with the obvious attempt at blackmail.  While the devil is in the details, this storyline is a motherlode of understated precision and detail, where the pace of the film unexpectedly moves straightaway to the crime itself just 45 minutes into the picture, a shocking revelation as this is usually reserved for the dramatic grand finale, but here it all happens before the midway point of the picture.  It’s a starkly dramatic moment where everything planned on paper takes on a completely different dimension in real life, where only the unexpected happens, turning this into a crime gone dreadfully wrong, something of a contrast to the way murder mysteries read in books, where outlandish crimes are committed seemingly at will, often with blood curdling results, the kind of thing that makes for excellent bedtime reading and was likely a preferred pastime of the master of suspense. 

The audience is likely taken aback by such a high level of tension at the midway point, where the rest of the film is the complete cover up and diversionary reinvention of the crime, where Tony manages to conceal and alter certain pieces of evidence before the police arrive, making it look like an attempted burglary, suggesting in his amusingly egoistic way that the thief was likely after his tennis championship trophies.  Despite his supposed dry and urbane demeanor, likely one of Milland’s best performances, the fun of the film is watching the swaggering confidence of the real murder instigator go through various transformations, where there’s never any doubt in his mind that he couldn’t pull off the perfect crime, always believing, up until the very final shot, that he can outwit the police.  Hitchcock takes a rather routine murder mystery and turns it into a tense psychological thriller, using the claustrophobic confines of the apartment to heighten the interior psychological suspense, constantly changing the multiple camera angles throughout, as Tony is continually called upon to re-examine the facts of the case.  Under the watchful eyes of a Scotland Yard Chief Inspector Hubbard, John Williams, the details take on an altogether different effect, continually changing the look of the crime.  The bright and very bold colors of Grace Kelly’s wardrobe in the opening are replaced by more somber colors at the end, where she is sent through the emotional ringer by the director, becoming a sobbing, incoherent jumble of nerves, the picture of chaos, utterly devastated by what happens to her, where Tony’s deliciously cool and suave indifference continually holds our interest, as his villainy is always bathed in artificial etiquette and social charm, suggesting the upper crust and best educated in the nation can devilishly use their learned knowledge and manner to constantly outwit an unsuspecting public who never see it coming.  But the Scotland Yard Inspector likely never went to Oxford, representing a more working man’s inquisitive presence, using a more dogged and workmanlike technique to catch a killer, where Hitchcock makes a clever dig at class differences, where the prevailing attitudes in Britain would likely favor the rich and the powerful, while a guy that tirelessly works for a living rarely earns their respect.

Sleep, My Love

SLEEP, MY LOVE             B-                       

USA  (97 mi)  1948  d:  Douglas Sirk

An early and extremely convoluted Douglas Sirk film, where the director seems more driven to implement a stylistic flourish than to create a satisfactory drama onscreen.  Poor Claudette Colbert really suffers here, as her performance is rather amateurish, revealing the traits of a pampered and overindulged society woman who can’t hold her liquor, who’s more interested in being the life of the party than having a serious thought in her head.  That said, her oily sneak of a husband (Don Ameche) is attempting to plan her demise through nefarious means while stealing away with another woman, Hazel Brooks, who hasn’t a brain in her head, whose sole purpose onscreen is to be sultry and provocative, a vampish siren who would make you want to leave your wife, except that despite her scantily clad wardrobe, this woman is a dullard who couldn’t hold anyone’s interest.  She’s like a bad character in the wrong film.  The story itself is much more complicated than it needs to be, attempting to become a mysterious web of deceit, but despite this labyrinth of wrong turns and missed opportunities, there isn’t an ounce of tension or building suspense.  None of the characters are involving, so there’s little interest in whatever the outcome may be, nothing satisfactory, so it’s largely just going through the motions, adding as many signature trademarks in the composition as he can. 

Technically, this film heralds much more interest and has been restored by the UCLA Film & Television Archives, where most of the film takes place in a single location, an outrageously upscale New York City apartment with a winding staircase up multiple floors and a magnificent terrace view of the Brooklyn Bridge.  While the marriage is held together by artificial manners and social grace (separate bedrooms, of course), all a smokescreen to cover up his lustful desires, the film instead follows the nearly always embarrassing behavior of Colbert who finds herself mysteriously on a train without remembering how she got on, causing a great deal of panic, as if she’d been kidnapped by an international espionage ring.  But no, it’s not that kind of movie, it’s just a simple mistake, quite common the film would have us believe, as she has a tendency to sleepwalk, often awaking in awkward situations.  Her husband calms her down with a sedative, finds her a psychiatrist, and has her believing she suffers from nightmares and hallucinations, seeing things that aren’t there, where she’s literally losing her mind.  Colbert’s glamorous outfits, by the way, are off the charts and ultra chic in black and white, and also she has her own indoor greenhouse where she hides herself, which she calls her jungle. But it’s her drunken enthusiasm and slurring speech that keeps her from being taken seriously, as she always appears tilted off center, incapable of rescuing herself, making this another damsel in distress movie.     

Enter TV’s Love That Bob (1955 – 59), Robert Cummings, another smooth talking, out of town friend who has desires of sweeping her off her feet until he discovers she’s already married, but makes sure she returns safely home before realizing afterwards that the husband’s explanation was suspect.  Everything becomes a puzzle that involves an entrenched police detective (Raymond Burr), a murderous husband (Ameche), an unsuspecting wife (Colbert), a femme fatale (Brooks), a blackmailing photographer who disguises himself as a psychiatrist (George Coulouris), the overly inquisitive friend (Cummings), and a couple of unsuspecting household servants who add luster to the lifestyle of a playboy millionaire who’s living off his wife’s fortune.  There’s a ridiculous side show of a Chinese marriage, where Keye Luke, later Master Po from the Kung Fu TV series (1972 – 75), and his newlywed bride break off from their honeymoon and take a sudden interest in detective work by enthusiastically helping Cummings solve the crime.  Joseph Valentine adds some murky, highly expressionist cinematography, blending together doorways, mirrors, windows, and a dizzying staircase, featuring a fabulous set design by Howard Bristol, while Sirk attempts to create a psychologically shifting motif of wanton desire and nightmarish panic, where the ever so smooth Ameche continues to push the buttons that will drive her feverishly over the edge, a variation on a similar theme in GASLIGHT (1944), but the characters here are out of their league when it comes to masterminding a world of deception.  In someone else’s hands this is ordinary stuff, but under the direction of Sirk it’s a fascinating early work, almost cultish, where the images are a lurid style of eye candy that literally pop off the screen.