Marval Movie

 A retired tennis player lives very comfortably with his wife, they live comfortably and seem to be happy. Later we learn that the wife had an affair with a novelist and while he comes over she tells him that she is being blackmailed. Later the husband invites an old college friend for what appears to be an Innocent catch up, they drink, talk about where other classmates are now and how he wants to hire him to kill his wife. 

The husband, Tony (Ray Milland) found out about a year ago that his wife had an affair with an American crime writer. He found out and for the whole year he has been the one who's been blackmailing her and planing her murder, he knows he cant do it himself, so he blackmails his old college friend, who's down on his luck, and offers him a chance to get some money.

His plan is so elaborate and genius, its almost scary how perfectly its so precisely planned out that he knows that he's covered every angle. Whenever he is questioned he has an immediate response, he seems to have thought of everything.  The main point of his plan is that he will take his wife's key, hide it outside the flat, under on of the stairs so he can get in, kill his wife then leave it back outside.

The setup is a little different for Hitchcock. Classic Hitchcock would have a normal man thrown into a asing situation, here we see the view of the one who initiates the terrible situation on the victim this movies point of originality is that its switched the perspective from what Hitchcock fans would be used to.

The movie is based (like so many Hitchcock movies were) on a stage play, by the same name. Frederick Knott who also wrote the stage play delivers a great situation and characters with magnificent complications and twists. The film only runs for one hour and forty minutes but the movie is so efficient with its story telling that it seems like it should need to be on a television show.  An interesting point is that there is an intermission about half way through.  In films like Laurence of Arabia and Barry Lyndon that are over three hours long, an intermission is sometimes needed to take a break and refresh the viewer but here it merely serves as a little breathing time so we can think back on whats happened and prepare ourselves for the next act.  I would not have the film without the intermission.

The wife, Margot, is played by Grace Kelly one of the great screen starlets of the cinema. She is the picture perfect "Hitchcock Girl" with blond hair and great erotic presence that compliments her excellent fashion that she gets wrapped in in every Hitchcock movie.  She only worked with Hitchcock twice, this and Rear Window and they worked together so perfectly that these two performances should be held as a national treasure.

The biggest highlight I give this movie is the performance of Ray Millland as Tony the scheming mastermind behind this most evil plot. Tony is one of the greatest villains in movie history.  He has thought out just about almost every detail of his own wife's murder and he is so confident that he is untouchable through his master elaborate plan that he talks about the murder of his wife like he's talking about the cricket scores. I consider it a crime that he did not receive an Oscar for his performance, this is one of the most subtle and controlled performance of a villain that I've ever seen and fully believe that he deserved an Oscar as recognition.

The duduk kasus with Tony's plan is the very fact that it is so detailed, he has thought out every minuscule detail and point that he should forget something giant that would stare him right in the face, he over-wound his watch. So when the time comes for him the make the call and start the murder he is a few minutes late. But still he calls in time before the killer leaves the flat, it seems that poor Margot will suffer her poor fate, before she kills her killer.

Tony rushes back to the flat like he knew nothing about it and tends to Margot, all the while keeping up the farce that he is in he dark about the situation. He gets back the  key from the killer's pocket and slips it back into her purse and acts like he has no idea what happened, and when he calls the police and they say "do you know who killed him?" you can see the gears turning in Tony's head as he now has to improvise as the plan changes from Margot being murdered to setting her up as a deliberate murderer to then be executed.

The best scene in the movie is when the writer, Mark, comes to Tony, the day before Margot is going to be executed, and he says he has a plan on how to get her off the hook.  He is after all a writer so he makes up a plot where it was Tony that hired his old class mate to kill Margot and it was really him who was blackmailing her the whole time, so ridiculous that it could only be created by a fiction writer. This is a scene of absolute genius the idea is brilliant enough but the actors make it work as both drama and comedy.

Then enters Chief Inspector Hubbard (John Williams, no not that John Williams) who gives the news of Margot's execution later on today, Mark hides in the bedroom where Tony's case of money is.  Tony and Hubbard play a little word tango with excellent execution when Mark eventually gets the case opened and realizes that the crazy story he came up with was true all along. But the point still remains that Tony couldn't have done it because the the keys can be accounted for, all looks hopeless.  But when Tony is out of the room Hubbard switches his and Tony's coat.

This also takes a twist against the traditional Hitchcock formula where (due to a traumatic childhood experience) Hitchcock was always in a state of paranoia to the police.  Hardly ever did he portray the police as something to be trusted and more of something to run away from. Here that cliche is avoided and we get a positive view of the police.  It is Ballard that had his suppositions the whole time and has been quietly piecing it together and the reveal is that the killer placed the key back under the stairs before he entered the flat. The key was the MacGuffin that nobody knew about.

Margot is brought back to the flat where Tony is then put to the test if he really did set up Margot's attempted murder, because if he did only he would know that the key was under the stairs, and he cant use his own key because Hubbard has switched coats.  He does and Tony knows he's lost but still he goes down with all the cockiness and class that you've come to expect from this classy villain.

Dial M offers that great rich experience of writing and talent from all of Hitchcock movies but also offers a few new twists in some of his more recurring cliches.