Undoubtedly, "Dial M for Murder" has a clever plot: Tony Wendice (Ray Milland) plans "the perfect murder" to do away with his wife Margot (Grace Kelly), who cheated on him with novelist Mark (Robert Cummings). He blackmails an old schoolmate into committing the crime and plants clues to mislead the police. But when things don't go according to plan, Tony has to plant new clues and think of another explanation to give the detectives, so that suspicion doesn't fall on him.
The trouble is, the plot is the only interesting thing about this movie, and the characters are defined solely by how they can affect the plot. For instance, Mark writes mystery novels only because this explains his ability to "read" the crime scene. Most of the movie's dialogue is expository: long scenes where the characters debate the minutiae of evidence found at the scene, without an interesting subtext. The movie is known for taking place almost entirely in the Wendices' living room, and Hitchcock does a good job of varying the camera angles to make you forget there's just one set. But he did this even better in "Rear Window," his other 1954 film.
Admittedly, Milland gives an enjoyable performance as the villaintruly a guy you love to hate, a clever and smiling sociopath. But Kelly and Cummings are surprisingly boring for a pair of adulterous lovers. Kelly also proves herself the ancestor of all those female horror- movie characters who go investigating strange noises in their best lingerie.
"Dial M for Murder" is lightweight without actually being funnya fatal combination. Though serious concerns (adultery, murder, the death penalty) underlie the story, we're never made to feel that they are really consequential. It's a cold and mechanical movie, which subordinates everything else to the demands of an intricate plot. Contrast this with something like "Rear Window," whose plot is simple and lacking in twists, but whose characters are vividly drawn and act as though their stories really meant something. Having a clever solution to a mystery does not a great movie make.
The trouble is, the plot is the only interesting thing about this movie, and the characters are defined solely by how they can affect the plot. For instance, Mark writes mystery novels only because this explains his ability to "read" the crime scene. Most of the movie's dialogue is expository: long scenes where the characters debate the minutiae of evidence found at the scene, without an interesting subtext. The movie is known for taking place almost entirely in the Wendices' living room, and Hitchcock does a good job of varying the camera angles to make you forget there's just one set. But he did this even better in "Rear Window," his other 1954 film.
Admittedly, Milland gives an enjoyable performance as the villaintruly a guy you love to hate, a clever and smiling sociopath. But Kelly and Cummings are surprisingly boring for a pair of adulterous lovers. Kelly also proves herself the ancestor of all those female horror- movie characters who go investigating strange noises in their best lingerie.
"Dial M for Murder" is lightweight without actually being funnya fatal combination. Though serious concerns (adultery, murder, the death penalty) underlie the story, we're never made to feel that they are really consequential. It's a cold and mechanical movie, which subordinates everything else to the demands of an intricate plot. Contrast this with something like "Rear Window," whose plot is simple and lacking in twists, but whose characters are vividly drawn and act as though their stories really meant something. Having a clever solution to a mystery does not a great movie make.