Rating: 
Summary: A Hitchcock thriller with first rate cast and good plot
Review: "Dial M For Murder" is one of Hitchcock's lesser known movies from the fifties. It was taken from Frederick Knott's successful stage play and he also wrote the screenplay. The film had a strong cast which included Ray Milland, Robert Cummings, and, in her first film for Hitchcock, Grace Kelly. The supporting cast included John Williams and Anthony Dawson. The film was made in 3-D but never released in this form here in the U.K.Tony Wendice (Ray Milland) is aware that his wife Margot (Grace Kelly) is having an affair with Mark Halliday (Robert Cummings). Margot is hoping for a divorce but her husband has other plans - Tony is alarmed about the thought of having to live without his wife's money so he decides to have her murdered. By chance he runs into an old college acquaintance called C. A. Swann (Anthony Dawson) who is known to have a criminal past and has in fact been in prison. Tony decides that Swann would be the ideal man to do the murder as he has no connection with Margot and offers him £1,000 to do the deed. Swann is reluctant at first so Tony has to resort to blackmail threatening Swann with exposure of some of his past criminal activities to persuade him to become involved. On the night of the planned murder Tony is dining out at a restaurant with Mark and some others (which is to be his alibi). He has left a key under the stair carpet for Swann to enter the apartment and at 11.0 p.m. Tony will phone Margot from the restaurant - Swann will be hiding behind the curtains and when Margot answers the phone he will strangle her from behind. The perfect crime - or is it? Unfortunately, due to unforeseen circumstances things don't quite work out as planned and there are many twists and turns before the police inspector (John Williams) has got it all figured out. Some favourite lines from the film: Robert Cummings (to Grace Kelly): "I can see this is going to be a rough evening. All of us saying nice things to each other". Ray Milland (to Anthony Dawson): "I thought of three different ways of killing him. I even thought of killing her - and that seemed a far more sensible idea". Kelly (to Cummings): "Do you really believe in the perfect murder?". John Williams (to Cummings): "They talk about flat footed policemen. May the saints preserve us from the gifted amateur". Hitchcock's cameo appearance in this film is a little different as he doesn't actually appear "in person". He is seen in the school reunion dinner photograph that Ray Milland shows to Anthony Dawson early in the film. Robert Cummings had starred in a previous Hitchcock film called "Saboteur" (1942). Grace Kelly went on to make two more films for Hitchcock - "Rear Window" and "To Catch a Thief" (both in 1954). Talented character actor John Williams was also in Hitchcock's "To Catch a Thief". "Dial M For Murder" was remade in 1998 as "A Perfect Murder" with Michael Douglas, Gwyneth Paltrow and Viggo Mortensen (the last named was also in the remake of "Psycho"). Another of Frederick Knott's plays made into a film was the excellent thriller "Wait Until Dark" starring Audrey Hepburn.
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