Dial M for Murder

As Margot reaches for the scissors, a bright spot can be glimpsed over Lesgate's shouldersit's one end of what's meant to be the same scissors, already sticking out of his back.

Margot's press cuttings are clearly blank on one side; cut out of newspapers, they should have printing on both sides.

The inspector makes a phone call from the flat, supposedly in London.

We hear a clearly American-accented voice on the other end say "operator".

It should have been an English voice, saying (in the 1950s), "Number, please.

" After Margot kills Lesgate, her handbag remains open on the table, making it easy to Tony puts in it the key which he took off the Lesgate's pocket.

Then the handbag appears closed between shots.

The boom mic is reflected in garden doors above Tony's and Inspector Hubbard's heads during the Inspector's first visit.

While Tony is first meeting with Swann, he holds a cane in front of him while seated.

In some shots he rests his chin on top of the cane; in other shots the cane is clearly far too short to reach his chin.

In a shot of the Queen Mary, a part of the wall holding the backdrop is visible.

When Margot stabs Lesgate with the scissors, the point of contact appear to be between his shoulder blades.

When he collapses on the scissors, they are much further down his back.

When Margot shows Mark the second blackmail letter, she starts to say her next line before her cue.

At 24:48, Wendice throws a £100 bundle on a pink armchair.

The money falls right at the back of the seat.

At 31:33, Swann takes the money.

The bundle is now right in front of the armchair.

At 78:47, John Williams lights his pipe.

At 80:08 he puts it in his pocket, careless that it is still lighted.

A simple inspector would have absolutely no power to have Margot temporarily released from Prison, especially prior to a death sentence.

It would have taken several appeals and even if she was released to help with the investigation, she would have been handcuffed and accompanied constantly by police officers to prevent her escape, and definitely not allowed to wander freely under far-away surveillance.

When Margot has her breakdown in Mark's arms nearer the end of the film, the carefully set waves at the front of her hair fall out of place and become loose - yet in the next again scene the waves have been completely re-set and smoothed down, something she neither would have had the time to do without curlers and a brush.

While Tony is talking to Swann/Lesgate about giving his tennis career up (sitting at the coffee table), he's idly twirling his cane a foot or so below his chin, and in the next shot (cut to side view of him) he's sitting with the cane below his chin with his hands propped upon it.

As Wendice walks out the front door after trying unsuccessfully to get into his flat, Hubbard describes to Margot and Mark what he's doing.

Wendice at first gives up on why his key doesn't work and is shown turning away from the entrance and starting to walk off.

The camera then cuts to Hubbard, who says, "It's no good, he's going away down the street.

" But then Hubbard says "Oh, just a minute", and as the camera cuts back to Wendice he's barely moved.

Given the time that has elapsed while Hubbard was speaking, Wendice should be several feet away by then.

From the position in which she was being forced flat on the desk while Swann was strangling her, Margot could not possibly have stabbed him in the back as far down, and at such a deep angle, as she is supposed to have done.

FLOOR PLAN doesn't match script.

The kitchen is clearly visible from the camera angle.

It would create an L shaped apartment, going under the stairs, yet the officers are told to go out back which would slam them into the kitchen wall.

Also there are no bars on the window as the script mentions, assuming they would be on the outside wall (which can be seen).

When Tony dials the first phone call in the movie, it's clear from the sound and his finger movements that the fourth digit is smaller than the third, perhaps a 4.

But from the immediately following dialogue, the number should be HAMpstead 7899, i.

426-7899.

During the trial the date of the murder is clearly stated as September 26th, but when looking at Tony's checkbook, Halliday says that March 26th was "the day before all this happened".

When Chief Inspector Hubbard uses his penlight to illuminate the telephone dial (and later to show the lock on the apartment door) the area of light is shaped and moves like an off-screen spotlight (which it is).

(at around 41 mins) Just before Margot is strangled she answers the phone but there is no one speaking.

We clearly HEAR that she is hitting the phone button several times with her hidden hand.

As we saw previously that this is not an 'operator' call, this should disconnect.

However, the husband keeps talking, and can be heard even before he hits the 'connect' button.

When Swann arrives at Wendice's flat, Wendice tells him they went to the same college but that Swann wouldn't recognize him because he (Wendice) had only arrived in Swann's last year.

But immediately afterward Wendice takes the reunion dinner photo from his wall, showing Swann sitting right beside Wendice.

Leaving aside the matter of why Swann and Wendice would be attending the same reunion since they had graduated years apart, Swann never contradicts Wendice's assertion that they hadn't seen one another in the 20 years since college.

Wendice shows the Inspector the photo of him and Swann at the reunion.

You can see the empty spot on the wall where the photo was.

After some conversation between the Inspector and Margo, the photo is back on the wall.

When Inspector Hubbard is looking out the bedroom window at Margot and the policemen walking toward the apartment, their legs suddenly disappear from view, revealing where the projected scene of the street meets the edge of the physical set.

The photograph of the college class reunion has obviously been doctored.

In the (doctored) photograph, it is obvious that the heads of 'Ray Milland' (qv), 'Anthony Dawson (I)' (qv), and 'Alfred Hitchcock (I)' (qv) have simply been "cut and pasted" onto the bodies of three other men in the original (undoctored) photograph.

Some viewers report that (at around 11 mins) in the film, Margot calls Mark ('Robert Cummings (I)' (qv)) "Bob".

Others insist that she is saying "Mark" in a muffled whisper that only sounds like "Bob".

After the Inspector switches raincoats without Tony's knowledge, as Tony leaves his apartment, he pulled the door shut causing the door latch to lock the door without the need of a key from the outside.

As Margot is sharing the press clippings with Mark, Tony unlocks the back door and closes the curtains.

Later, the curtains are back open and he closes them again.

When Swann is outside the apartment he checks his wristwatch and it shows the time is 10:53.

The dial is plainly visible and has no brand logo.

Once Swann has entered the apartment, he checks his watch again.

The dial is visible and shows a time of 10:58.

Partially hidden below the minute hand now is a miniature of a European steam locomotive.

This is definitely my favourite Hitchcock thriller. Adapted from Frederick Knott's equally enduring stage play Ray Milland is wonderfully suave, debonaire and calculating as "Tony" who goes to some effort to enact the perfect murder to despatch his cheating wife (Grace Kelly).

Whether seen on the stage or on screen, "Dial M for Murder" is an excellent crime thriller. In its best scenes, it feels like a chess match between two formidable foes.

The only problem that some people may have with this film is that it's very talky, and filmed almost entirely in an apartment. However, that in a way was the brilliance of Hitchcock here.

Brilliant script, good acting and nice setting.This movie is definitely worth watching every minute.

A great suspense film, which explained the murderer and the method of committing crimes from the beginning. The technique is great, but there will be many small accidents in the play.

That Frederick Knott's 1952 play "Dial M for Murder" should be chosen for Alfred Hitchcock's only venture into 3-D proved to be advantageous for the author, as there are only four main characters seen on screen, the rest being policemen, and really only one major set required, quite a challenge for anyone else to undertake. Warners was insistent that shooting be done in Natural Vision's two projector 3-D process, though few screenings could be viewed that way, the fad having died out in little more than two years.

The film is too succinct to be critical. Hitchcock takes no more than two minutes, and margo's smooches with Tony and mark quickly clear up the characters.

Personal Rating: 9/10This is the one, I've watched a great many Hitchcock movies, but this is the one that proves to me he truly is a genius, a mastermind of suspense.This movie takes mere minutes to kick into top gear, and it stays there for the entire runtime.

Tony Wendice is a former tennis champion living off his wife's money. But when he feels threatened by the affair she is having with an American novelist, he plans the perfect murder in order to inherit her money.