{"id":22232,"date":"2024-09-01T20:19:03","date_gmt":"2024-09-01T19:19:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.sebpalmer.com\/blog\/?p=22232"},"modified":"2024-09-01T21:32:16","modified_gmt":"2024-09-01T20:32:16","slug":"media-film-dial-m-for-murder-19","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.sebpalmer.com\/blog\/?p=22232","title":{"rendered":"MEDiA\/FiLM: Dial M for Murder, 1954"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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A great Hitchcock potboiler. Ray Milland is terrific as the unctuously smooth villain Tony Wenders. And Grace Kelly is radiantly beautiful as his wife, Margot, aka the gal in danger.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s not one of Hitch\u2019s absolute best. Nor, by a long stretch, one of his weaker as films. Beautifully crafted, and well acted, within the standards of its milieu. It\u2019s just good Saturday or Sunday afternoon\/evening fun.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Wenders and Swann.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The title is somewhat ironic. Whilst it captures the premise. The plot or premise concocted by Tony has more holes in it than fishnet stockings. Unravelling like a garter whose elastic has gone. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Unlike many Hitchcock (or other crime\/murder) movies, the McGuffinal motive murder doesn\u2019t <\/em>actually happen. In that respect it\u2019s a clever little twist, akin in some ways to how Columbo\u2019s crimes are solved, from the viewer\u2019s perspective, in reverse.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The fascination humans have with the nexus between sex and violence, themes fundamental in Hitchcock\u2019s oeuvre, is cleverly played upon by the publicity materials. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Posters for the film show the attempted murder looking like sex. The man mounts the lady, and she, head back and arm outstretched, might be in the throes of orgasm\u2026 le petits morts.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The old big black Bakelite phone – which takes the place of the scissors – is obviously important. And there are some funny special effects in connection with this.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Fab titles!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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The giant prop \u2018phone.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The \u2018Columbo connection\u2019 goes deeper\u2026 moustachioed detective inspector Herbert pauses at the door, and says \u2018there was just one more thing<\/em>\u2026\u2019 <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Tony, Mark and Inspector Herbert.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

And the ending is sooo<\/em> Columbo. They won\u2019t get their man unless he indicts himself<\/em>. Hoist by his own petard. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The quality of Hitchcock\u2019s work is, for the most part, uniformly high. So, whilst he\u2019s made even better films, this remains excellent. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A great Hitchcock potboiler. Ray Milland is terrific as the unctuously smooth villain Tony Wenders. And Grace Kelly is radiantly beautiful as his wife, Margot, aka the gal in danger. It\u2019s not one of Hitch\u2019s absolute best. Nor, by a long stretch, one of his weaker as films. Beautifully crafted, and well acted, within the … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “MEDiA\/FiLM: Dial M for Murder, 1954”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/paGwUa-5MA","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.sebpalmer.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22232"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.sebpalmer.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.sebpalmer.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.sebpalmer.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.sebpalmer.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=22232"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/www.sebpalmer.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22232\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22243,"href":"http:\/\/www.sebpalmer.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22232\/revisions\/22243"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.sebpalmer.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=22232"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.sebpalmer.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=22232"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.sebpalmer.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=22232"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}