High Noon (1952)

 “You risk your skin catching killers and the juries turn them loose so they can come back and shoot at you again. If you're honest you're poor your whole life and in the end you wind up dying all alone on some dirty street. For what? For nothing. For a tin star.”

            Until I watched High Noon I had yet to find a western that felt intense. To me there just never seems to be any tension because they all seem the same. There is a small Midwestern town in the middle of nowhere where the sheriff has to save the day from some outlaws and bandits. That is pretty much what goes on in High Noon but told differently, artistically, and brilliantly.

            Will Kane (Gary Cooper) has just married Amy Fowler (Grace Kelly). He is the town’s sheriff but he had planned to leave the position to become a storekeeper. From the train station the stationmaster runs into town to warn Will that Ben and Frank Miller have been released from jail and along with two other outlaws Jack Colby and Jim Pierce are set to come into town on the noon train.

            Upon hearing the news Will immediately leaves with Amy. When they are a little ways out of town Will stops the wagon and tells Amy that him running is exactly what Frank Miller wants him to do and if he were to run it might not be good for the townspeople and they would also try to hunt him down wherever he goes. Will turns the wagon around and heads back to town. As the time ticks down Will struggles with what to do. He goes to the local saloon to try to gather up special deputies to help fight the outlaws. No one there wants to help because most of them are friends with the Millers and others have changed their minds about him as a sheriff. Will then interrupts church services to gather people. Several of the church members do not want to help him either mostly because he was unable to keep the brothers behind bars and now they may come and hurt their children and destroy their town.

            In the meantime Amy has given Will an ultimatum. He either leaves with her or she leaves on her own on the noon train. Will decides to stay and finish what needs to be finished.

            The time and train come into town. Everyone is indoors waiting and protecting themselves for whatever may come. Amy was on the train when she hears gunfire erupt. She rushes off the train and to the Marshall’s office.  Will has the outlaws chase him to the edge of town to barn. They have him trapped for a moment as they try to burn down the barn Will is hiding in. Will manages to kill one of the outlaws from his perch until he is forced down from the fire.

            Hiding in the Marshall’s office Amy sees one of the outlaws. She finds a gun and shoots the man dead. The last outlaw left alive is Frank Miller. He finds her and drags her out of the office. Frank tells Will to come out or he will kill Amy. As soon as Will shows himself he throws Amy to the ground and begins to shoot. Amy attacks Frank and Will is able to shoot the outlaw dead.

            Immediately following the end of the battle the townspeople come out of their homes and businesses. Will throws his badge on the ground and he and Amy finally leave the town for a new life.

            What I liked about the story with High Noon is that you know the outlaws are coming to kill Will but it is the build up and anticipation of the coming fight that creates this great tension. We see Will all tense with anticipation and helplessness. I also really liked how Will is shown to be a good man but from what everyone else says to him about him and them not wanting to help you see that maybe Will Kane is not a very good man. Like, he has tried to do his best but he either was not up to the task as much as the people would have liked or he just did a lousy job protecting the town. Adding to the tension was the direction. Several of the shots were from below or just level with the actors in the scenes where their anxiety is building. The direction I felt was artistic and different for a Western. I like artistic-ness when it comes to certain films. I never would have thought that combined with a Western that style or effect would have worked so well. I liked how there was very little action and it was more of a story of a man with conflicting morals and emotions than all action.

            High Noon is a very good classic Western that is worth watching. 

To Catch a Thief (1955)

“For what it's worth, I never stole from anybody who would go hungry”

            I believe in another life I must have been a thief. Especially in the past few months I have had this belief because one of my favorite topics in my Museum Registration class is theft prevention (along with copyright law), I love movies that have to do with jewel or bank robberies, and I just re-watched the entire series of Leverage one of my all time favorite TV shows  (which if you have never seen or heard of it was a show about con artists who were good guys) where my favorite character is the thief (she steals art and so does the character of the grifter). I love how thieves are made to be smarter than the quote/unquote good guys. It amazes me how smart they are and how quick they have to be. Of course I know I am talking about fictional characters and that theft of any kind is wrong and I would never dream of going into that line of business in a million years. I am neither smart enough or courageous enough to be a thief.

            This all being said one of my favorite Alfred Hitchcock films is his 1955 film To Catch a Thief starring Cary Grant and Grace Kelly.

            In the beautiful French Riviera a string of jewel robberies has occurred. All of them happen at the hotels along the beach. The police immediately suspect an American named John Robie (Grant). They naturally suspect him because he used to be known as “The Cat” a notorious jewel thief. The police come to Robie’s house t ask him questions. He manages to get away by climbing out the window of his bedroom. Robie goes into town to a restaurant where he speaks to a few people he used to work with. They are not happy with him for drawing attention to him. Robie swears these robberies are not his doing.

            Robie receives a list of all the rich people who are staying at the hotels with a list of their jewel collections and how much they are insured for. He decides to do his own investigating to clear his name. He finds the name of a Mrs. Stevens and her daughter Francine (Kelly) on the list. They made their fortune when oil was found in their backyard and have been traveling around Europe before coming to the Riviera. He catches their attention under a different name pretending he is a businessman from Portland. Francine immediately takes to Robie.

            Francine takes Robie out for a car ride one afternoon. All throughout the car ride two police officers in a black car follow them. He has her take him to a house where a party will be held under the story that he wants to show her the gardens. As they walk around and she talks Robie scopes out the house figuring out where this new Cat can enter and exit from without getting caught. Back on the road Robie has Francine drive fast to shake off the police. When they stop to eat Francine tell Robie she knows he is The Cat. She thinks of the whole thing as a game and tells him she wants to join him on one of his heists and who they should rob next.

            That night at the hotel Francine comes into Robie’s room demanding for her mother’s jewels back. Her mother has been robbed. Robie does not have the jewels he was in his room the entire time. He goes into the room and finds the real thief came in and left through the bathroom window. Francine wants to call the police but her mother does not.

            Robie finds out this new Cat is robbing a house on the water. While investigating he is almost killed. Unfortunately one of his old friends from the restaurant was there and he is killed when he falls from a high place into the water. The newspapers and police claim that The Cat has been killed. Robie knows his friend is not and could not be The Cat because the man a wooden leg. He tells the police he has a feeling he knows who the real Cat is and needs to go to the party at the house he checked out. He manages to get Francine to invite him and with her help he gets the thief.

            I do not think Cary Grant could more handsome than he did this film. He looked amazing. I liked seeing Grant as a reformed thief he looked like he could be a thief. Grace Kelly was alright. She is not one of the best actresses. She did look fantastic with Grant but he always managed to make his women look extra beautiful when he was on screen with them.

            My favorite scene of the film is the most well known one. Robie and Francine are in a room alone together with the view from the window looking out over the water and fireworks going off. The room is dark with the only illumination coming from the lights outside through the window. Francine tries to tempt Robie with her femine wiles and her necklace. It is a slow build up to their kiss. I just love the way the scene was played out. Everything about it was sexy from the acting to the lighting to Hitchcock’s directing. I also loved Grace Kelly’s first scene. She is just sitting on the beach applying suntan lotion as Robie walks passed her on the beach. She looked beautiful and a bit mysterious.

            Edith Head designed Grace Kelly’s costumes. The gowns and dresses are so beautiful. Kelly’s white dress is one of my all time favorite from a film. It is simple yet stunning. The blue dress, the first one Kelly wears in the film is beautiful as well with its different shades of blue throughout it.

            To Catch a Thief has a great story. Well it is right up my alley at the moment. I actually did not even really mean to watch it until my friend wanted to have a Cary Grant marathon and she never saw To Catch a Thief. This film is fun to watch and compared to some of his other films it is a bit light. Hitchcock told Francois Truffaut that this film was not meant to be taken seriously. To Catch a Thief is an essential viewing for any film buff… especially those that like stories about thieves.

 

Rear Window (1954)

“Why would a man leave his apartment three times on a rainy night with a suitcase and come back three times?”

           

            When I first watched Rear Window a few years ago I was not too much of a fan of it. James Stewart as always bothered me and he was made even worse just sitting around in a wheelchair being weird and creepy spying on his neighbor. But like most of Hitchcock’s later films I have seen and not been too crazy about I gave it another go. I never mind doing rewatching a Hitchcock film especially because I have a better understanding of classic films and his other works. Rear Window I had wanted to watch again and I finally did with my brother Anthony who is majoring in film. We had a good time watching it together with our current, more mature film knowledge.

            L.B. Jefferies (Stewart) has been confined to his Greenwich Village apartment since breaking his leg. As the camera shows us when it pans L.B.’s living room he is a photographer who has traveled all over the world. It also shows us a photograph of a race car crashing with parts scattered all over heading towards L.B. and his camera. His closeness to the crash has caused his broken leg. He has positioned himself and his wheelchair in front of the window which faces a very active courtyard with several neighbors and their different personalities. One neighbor dances around her apartment in her underwear, an older couple with no children dote on their dog and sleep on the balcony at night, a lonely old maid sits her house wishing for someone to love her, a man is being nagged by his invalid wife, and a song writer taps way on his piano trying to compose a hit.

            L.B. has been asleep in his chair for most of the afternoon. He is woken by his girlfriend Lisa Fremont (Grace Kelly) moving in to kiss him. Lisa has come with the intentions of feeding L.B. dinner made by the 21 Club and to spend the night. The couple discusses the idea of marriage. They both love each other but they have different ideas of married life- Lisa wants L.B. to settle down and stop traveling while, on the other hand, L.B. does not want to stop traveling he does not want to become a high society portrait photographer. Both of them become upset by the conversation and winds up with Lisa changing her mind about spending the night.

            Out of boredom, L.B. begins to look in on his neighbors around the courtyard. He pays special attention to the man and his invalid wife across the way. One day L.B. notices the wife is no longer around and the husband is acting suspiciously. He plants the idea in his mind that he man has murdered his nagging wife. Concerned L.B. calls a detective friend of his to investigate. The detective thinks L.B. has an over worked imagination because he does not have anything to do but he gives in and looks into the couple. He finds out their last name is Thorwald and that Mrs. Thorwald has gone on a trip by train since he found of her luggage had been unloaded at a station.

            L.B. is not happy with what his friend has found. He decides to investigate Thorwald on his own. He gets Lisa involved in his spying and manages to convince her Thorwald has killed his wife. L.B. even manages to get his physical therapist Stella (Thelma Ritter) involved. L.B.’s curiosity has no become dangerous since Thorwald now knows he is being watched.

            Hitchcock, as always, manages to grab his audience’s attention by making real life activities, and even the weather, suspenseful. He creates the tension by having the story take place during a heat wave in a crowded New York City courtyard made up of several apartment complexes. The tension is also created by L.B.’s boredom, he is anxious and going out of his mind sitting in his wheelchair unable to travel and take pictures. Ken Mogg in his book The Alfred Hitchcock Story best explains how the director grabs our attention- “Stella’s opening remark from the doorway, ticking Jeff off for being a Peeping Tom, rivets our attention.” The reason her remark “rivets our attention” is because we are all guilty of being Peeping Toms. Whenever a window is open no one can resist seeing how someone else lives or see what they do when they think no one is looking.

            Rear Window is the perfect type of film Hitchcock liked to make. Hitchcock described the film best to Francois Truffaut in their sessions of interviews, “What you see across the way is a group of little stories, as you say, mirror a small universe.” As I mentioned every neighbor shown in the courtyard has their own personalities and comforts. They are all living in their own small universe which unfortunately is being scrutinized by this one man. I think the most brilliant aspect of the film that I had not picked up until I read about is how the murderer and his wife mirror L.B. and Lisa. L.B. is confined to his wheelchair as Mrs. Thorwald is confined to her bed while Lisa and Mr. Thorwald are able to move about in the world. Hitchcock compares this symmetry to Shadow of a Doubt which is a story of good versus evil. Truffaut brings up another fantastic aspect of the film which looking back on it should have been so obvious (well it was I picked up on this but only slightly because I was trying not to let James Stewart get to me). He states, “All the stories have a common denominator in that they involve some aspect of love. James Stewart’s problem is that he doesn’t want to marry Grace Kelly. Everything he sees across the way has a bearing on love and marriage.” After reading this I believe this bearing brings about more tension to the story. Time and again Hitchcock explored love and tense relationships- the perfect examples being Spellbound and Notorious. I believe that Lisa puts a burden on L.B.’s shoulders when she brings up the subject of love and wanting to marry him and that burden is also put on our shoulders because we wait to see what his final decision is and we have the burden of the thought of what he will decide.

            Even though I am not a super hug fan of James Stewart I thought he was alright in this role- meaning he did not drive me up a wall like he usually does. Stewart is just awkward with whomever he is paired with in films and I thought he was incredibly awkward looking paired with Grace Kelly. He was not like Cary Grant who just kept getting more handsome as he got older and could look right with younger actresses (Grant and Kelly were incredibly sexy together in To Catch a Thief). Stewart just looked like a creepy old man with Kelly as his love interest.

            Grace Kelly also usually bothers me in her films but I really like her as Lisa Fremont. Much of the character of Lisa was based off Kelly herself. The screenwriter John Michael Hayes had observed Kelly while she was filming Dial M For Murder. He had seen her sense of humor and sexiness. In a sense Kelly was playing herself which worked out quite well.

            Edith Head designed the costumes for Grace Kelly. The designer said that Kelly as one of her favorite actresses to work with. You can see why. Kelly was gorgeous and anything she wore fit her so well and looked amazing on her. This was the first time that I could truly see how Edith Head designed her clothes for the characters. Lisa Fremont is a society model for fashion magazines. She is stylish, sophisticated and glamorous yet simple at the same time. Head made the most perfect costumes for the character of Lisa Fremont. Her costumes helped to bring Lisa to life. Looking back on the costumes Edith Head designed for other films she always designed for the character not the actress she seemed to design strictly for the characters’ personalities. When I was in London in three years ago I had the fortunate opportunity to be there when the Victoria and Albert Museum had an exhibit of Grace Kelly’s clothing entitled Grace Kelly: Style Icon (there is a fabulous book about it as well which I highly recommend taking a look at if you are interested in fashion or the actress). One of the pieces of clothing on display was the all black dress Kelly wore in Rear Window. I can remember seeing it and just staring at it for several minutes. I could not believe that I was standing in front of something from a Hitchcock film as well something Edith Head had designed. As a Hitchcock and an admirer of costume designing it was absolutely surreal to see this beautiful yet simple dress in person.

            When Hitchcock made Rear Window he said that he had recharged and was feeling creative again. You can see his creativity in every facet of his direction. As I said at the beginning of this post I am very happy to have watched Rear Window again because I understand film and Hitchcock’s style more than I did a few years when I first sat through it. I think I can now say that Rear Window is one of my favorite Hitchcock films

Mogambo (1953)

“The only lions I ever want to see again are the two in front of the public library.”

            MGM never made any of their films on a small scale. With Mogambo they went all out and actually filmed some of the scenes actually filmed in Africa. MGM sacrificed story for the sake of production values. I know this is a remake of Red Dust I have yet to see it so I cannot compare the two. I can only hope that Red Dust was a little better.

            Victor Marswell (Clark Gable) is a hunter in a small village in Africa. He brings people out on safaris and he also traps animals to send to zoos and circuses. Victor comes back from trying to trap a panther when he sees several suitcases strewn about his home. He gets to the back porch and sees a woman taking a shower. The woman introduces herself as Eloise Kelly (Ava Gardner). He is not thrilled with seeing and she is even less thrilled being in the jungle. Victor gives her the bad news that the maharajah she was supposed to be with there has left to go back to India on important business.

            The usual happens- Victor at first does not like Kelly then all the sudden he has the hots for her then he tells her to get lost. Kelly leaves on a boat but is back that night because something happened to the boat. Now she will about when a husband and wife are coming to the complex to go looking for gorillas to study. The husband and wife are Donald and Linda Nordley (the missus being played by Grace Kelly). Almost right away Victor is attracted to Linda and Kelly can see that. Kelly winds tagging along on the trip to find the gorillas. She makes Victor and Linda’s life uncomfortable the whole time since she knows their little secret.

            I really have nothing further to write about the plot. I am sure you can tell just by the poster with Clark Gable and Ava Gardner being first billed that they wind up together in the end.

            Ava Gardner was the whole film. She just stole all her scenes with her beauty and her fabulous wit. Her character was the only one with a sense of humor and liveliness. She was cynical and delivered the lines to perfection. Gardner had the best lines and scenes of the film whenever she is not in a scene the film just falls flat. Clark Gable was in his fifties by this time and in no way the matinee idol he was when he originally made Red Dust. I have never understood Gable’s appeal he was not a good looking man in any sense of the word and I cannot understand even in character how women could fall for him. Gable and his character just looked like they could not keep up with Gardner and Grace Kelly he looked like he could have cared less for either of them. Grace Kelly… I wanted to smack her in the face so damn bad! Gardner was nominated for her only Academy Award, she deserved it, and should have won. Kelly was nominated for an Oscar as well as a Golden Globe and she won the Golden Globe. So absolutely unfair. Gardner was so much better than Kelly. Kelly was annoying to the most extreme. Ava Gardner and Grace Kelly became very good friends during filming and remained so until Kelly died.

            Gene Tierney was supposed to play Linda Nordley but by this time her psychological problems were beginning to interfere with her work. I cannot even imagine how incredible it would have been to see Ava Gardner and Gene Tierney work together. They were two of the most beautiful women in Hollywood. Tierney would have been ten times better than Grace Kelly.

            John Ford directed the film. Ford made very manly films especially his films with John Wayne. You can almost imagine Wayne in the lead. Apparently he was very nasty to Ava Gardner during the making of this because he had wanted Maureen O’Hara in her role. Maureen O’Hara as Eloise Kelly? Get the hell out of here!  Only Gardner was perfect for the role and if you have yet to see this film you will know why. Clark Gable got into some fights with Ford over his treatment of Gardner.

            Mogambo was good I enjoyed it but after a while all the jungle scenes and any scene with Grace Kelly gets tedious. Ava Gardner is the film’s savior she was so amazing. Mogambo is a film I recommend seeing even if it is a little boring because the cast is good (even if Grace was annoying beyond words) and there are some funny scenes. 

High Society (1956)

“I’m such an unholy mess of a girl.” 

            For a while now I have been very hesitant to watch High Society. The reason being is I like The Philadelphia Story so much and I really did not want to see a remake of the film. My mind was changed to finally see High Society after TCM aired their trailer for the film in between their showings. It looked good enough and I have been loving Frank Sinatra lately so I threw away my reluctance and watched it. I like to be pleasantly surprised when I watch a film I was not expecting to like too much and I was very pleasantly surprised with High Society.

            The plot of High Society follows the same plot as The Philadelphia Story with a few changes (I am not going into the plot since they are the same and I have already written about the first one). C.K. Dexter Haven (Bing Crosby) is a music writer and singer. He wrote a song for Tracy (Grace Kelly) then turned it into a big hit which she was not happy about and that is why she divorced him. Also she wanted perfection from her husband and he was not giving it to her. Mike Connor (Sinatra) is a reporter but he has never written a book and he is also in love with Liz Imbrie (Celeste Holm). Oh and Dexter lives next door to the Lords in a huge house his grandparents left him. I liked these little changes they were just enough to differentiate the two films and give this one something of its own to stand on.

            As for my favorite part of the film it is once again the scene where Tracy and Mike get drunk together. Grace Kelly and Frank Sinatra were hysterical together.

            I liked the cast very much. I loved Sinatra as Mike Connor. For one minute you never believe the guy to be from Deluth like you do James Stewart in the original and I think that Sinatra was cast as a guy who was supposed to be from out west. But I like that he had such an innocent, sweet look to him that you could believe. You could believe this small time reporter is innocently attracted to this rich girl. Grace Kelly… where do I begin? She was a gorgeous girl and that is about it because talent as an actress she did not have. I honestly cannot tell you who was the more annoying Tracy Lord, Grace Kelly or Katharine Hepburn. Kelly is eerily like Hepburn with her speech with that phony British accent… actually I want to question Kelly’s accent she was originally from Philadelphia. I guess like Hepburn she made up her own accent to speak with. Kelly was ridiculously beautiful when she smiled her whole face just lit up. Bing Crosby was a cute choice for Dexter. I have not seen Crosby in too many films so I cannot really comment on him too much but I liked what I saw of him in this film. Celest Holm was two years younger than Sinatra but she looked like she could have played an older aunt. I have no complaints about her as an actress but for the character I felt her wrong. I was thinking of Ruth Hussey as Liz in The Philadelphia Story and she was perfect for the role I loved her quick wit, her fast comments, and the faces she made. I guess Liz was not written that way for the musical. I found the character boring when she had been so good. This was the last film Louis Calhern made before he died. He died while on location for his next picture of a heart attack. Poor guy I love seeing him in films. I will he say he went out well he was very funny and very charming as Uncle Willie.

            I as you can tell I could not help but compare High Society to The Philadelphia Story. I began to think if I could take cast members from both films for the characters who would I take? Who would be better in the roles? I would most definitely keep Cary Grant as C.K. Dexter Haven he was perfect in the role. Ruth Hussy would without a doubt stay as Liz. Roland Young would stay as Uncle Willie because I can picture him being the behind pincher and ladies man better than Louis Calhern. For Mike I would keep Sinatra, I do not mind James Stewart in the role but I really love Sinatra for the character he never became too much. As for Tracy… goodness both women are annoying beyond measure but I would have to go with Grace Kelly she is more believable in the role.

            High Society was a very good film. The story definitely works with the musical aspects. I am very glad I watched the film because as I said I was pleasantly surprised by how much I liked it. I started watching it before class when I was at school and had to wait over three hours to finish it! I knew the story but I was enjoying it and the characters and the differences from the original that I could not wait to get home and finish it.

 

Dial M For Murder (1954)

“Smart, aren't you?”
“No, not really. I've just had time to think things out. Put myself in your position. That's why I know you're going to agree.”

            One of the many reasons I like Hitchcock’s films is because he always knew how to put together a great cast and he always had characters good or bad or sometimes both that the audience could sympathize with. Dial M For Murder is one of Hitchcock’s perfect films from the story and direction to lighting and casting.

            Tony Wendice (Ray Milland) is an ex-pro tennis player. He and his wife Margot (Grace Kelly) live in a small apartment in London. When we are first introduced to the couple they are happily sitting down to breakfast seeming to be the 1950s example of the perfect couple. Later that night we see all is not perfect with the couple as Margot is now in the arms of another man named Mark Halliday (Robert Cummings).

            Margot had met Mark the previous year when their affair first started. Mark is a mystery writer living in America so he and Margot correspond through letters. Margot is upset her purse had been stolen at a train station a few months previously along with a letter from Mark. The purse was recovered at a lost and found but the letter was gone. Ever since then she has received two blackmail letters to pay her otherwise they will show her husband the letter. Margot paid them but nothing has happened she has not gotten the letter back. Tony comes home and decides not to go out to the theater with them saying he has a lot of work to do.

            After Mark and Margot leave Tony phones a garage owner saying that he wants to speak to him in person about a car that is for sale. Before the man comes over Tony sets things up around the apartment suspiciously. Now as the audience we know that something hinky is going on. When the man named C.A. Swan comes over Tony sweet talks him a little and after a few minutes he lets Swan know that he has been following him and knows all his shady dealings. Tony’s explains that he followed Swan to blackmail him into killing his wife. Tony has found out about Margot cheating on him with Mark and now wants to kill her and he plans the perfect murder.

            The plan is set for the next night. While Tony is out with Mark at a party Swan is to come in and kill Margot when he hears the phone ring to bring his wife out of the bedroom. That night things do not go smoothly: Margot almost goes out, Tony’s watch stops, but the one thing that should have happened does not. When Swan attacks Margot she fights back and stabs Swan in the back killing him.

            Now Tony is all nervous and he frames the whole accident to make it look like Margot purposely killed Swan.

            The cast of Ray Milland, Grace Kelly, Robert Cummings, and John Williams as the police detective was perfection. Milland was one of the best villains/antagonists in Hitchcock’s films. He just had that evil, malicious, jealous, slick look about him that made him such a great bad guy. I am not a huge Grace Kelly fan I find her to be more of an icon and a cliché more than a great classic actress. But I did find her to be very good as Margot. This was her first film for Hitchcock and she was one of the director’s favorite leading ladies. There is one scene of her when she is being prosecuted (in a sense of the word) and put on trial where she looks, to me, so unbelievably pretty. She really is not the heroine of the film the main heroes, if they can be called that, are Mark and the Inspector who save her. She definitely pays for her sins of cheating. Robert Cummings is very good as the other man who accidentally stumbles into the real happenings of the crime. John Williams adds a little comic/suspense relief as the sympathetic Inspector Hubbard.

            With the characters of Tony, Margot, and Mark we feel sympathetic towards them even though they are all in the morally wrong. Tony is upset that his gorgeous young wife is cheating on him. Margot is cheating but she is the victim who was almost killed and then arrested for a murder she is supposed to have planned. Mark loves Margot and does anything he can to get her out even going to Tony to confess his love for her. I love how in pretty much all of Hitchcock’s films we are made to feel sympathetic to characters no matter how much they do not deserve it.

            Dial M For Murder is based off a stage play. Hitchcock excellently stayed true to the stage formula only moving out of the apartment set three times. He knew that the dialogue was the most important aspect of the story so he focuses more on the actors and the telling of their stories and ideas. His amazing camera work and use of colors and visual imagery keeps the one roomed setting from getting boring. To me the one roomed set and the claustrophobia it creates is what makes the film so suspenseful and tense.

            My favorite scene of the whole film is one that everyone has either seen a picture of or has seen it somewhere: as Margot is being attacked by Swan she reaches back for some sort of help. It is one of my favorite shots from a film. There is so much desperation on both of the characters and Hitchcock excellently filmed that.  Just the entire scene where Margot is being attacked was filmed and acted perfection .

            Another scene that I could not get over the way it was filmed was when Margot is alone with Mark in the apartment. They hear Tony coming in the door, they have been holding each other and we see them let go of each other and walk away in shadow. It is a bit difficult to explain you would have to see it but I loved it I thought it was awesome.

            Also as with all of Hitchcock’s films the score is top notch in helping to create suspense and drama. Famed composer and conductor Dimitri Tiomkin created a haunting, atmospheric score.

            Dial M For Murder is one of the Master of Suspense’s best films. Unfortunately this film often gets overlooked most likely due to the fact that Rear Window came out the same year and the actors besides Grace Kelly are not typical or recurring to Hitchcock films. I think this is one of his best casted films and one of his best all round films. It is one of the director’s most simple which is a nice break from all his chaotic films where the characters are all over the place.

            Dial M For Murder is a Hitchcock film not to be overlooked.