Hitchcock Gets His Hands on Blackmail

“Self-plagiarism is style.”--Alfred Hitchcock

For a full-length series of posts about Dial M for Murder, check out my mondo analysis!

One of my favorite shots in all of Hitchcock's movies appears in his 3D chamber piece Dial M for Murder (1954). Here's the setup: though Margot Wendice (Grace Kelly) killed Anthony Lesgate (Anthony Dawson) in self defense, suspicion has been aroused that she actually murdered him in cold blood. In this shot taken from her point of view, she makes a desperate plea for her innocence, holding out a key to her questioners that should exonerate her, but which, pathetically, does the opposite.


In 3D, her arm appears to float in front of the theater's front row, as if severed from her body. For my money, there are are few other moments in cinema history that telegraph such pitiful hopelessness, winning the audience's sympathy—and its dread for her future.

This shot also riffs on the film’s earlier murder where, in the 3D experience, Margot "reaches into the audience,” as if imploring it for help as she gropes for the scissors with which to defend herself:


These two shots are among many in Dial M demonstrating that Hitchcock’s innovative and expressive use of 3D effects is unmatched. Which raises an interesting question: working with a new medium, and with no other filmmaker exploring 3D’s potential with his level of sophistication, where did Hitchcock get his ideas? From himself.

As it happens, versions of those two shots appear in his final silent—and first sound—film (he made two versions), Blackmail (1929). Like Dial M, that movie also explores the guilt of a woman who has killed her attacker in self defense. Take a look at its murder scene:

With the action hidden behind a curtain, we are left to imagine Crewe’s (Cyril Richard's) sexual assault on Alice White (Anny Ondra). (The situation itself augurs Lesgate’s rape-like attack of Margot on the writing desk.) In her desperation, Alice's hand fumbles about, eventually to grasp a bread knife. After her weapon finds its target, Crewe's dead hand then flops out from behind the curtain, completing this stanza of violence, which is mercifully hidden from us. The entire scene is expressed by the movement of hands and and is no less terrifying in its refusal to show us the details of the assault and of Crewe's subsequent death.

Later in the film, in a scene that anticipates Dial M, Tracy (Donald Calthrop), the film’s would-be blackmailer, comes to see that not only will his plot fail, but that he is going to be framed for Crewe’s death. Pleading for his life, he hands the blackmail note to Detective Frank Webber (John Longden), hoping—in vain—for mercy. Note how his hand protrudes in from the side of the frame:



On a formal level, these repetitions add resonance to an otherwise tawdry story. As Sidney Gottlieb noted in his article “Hitchcock’s Silent Cinema,” which appeared in A Companion to Alfred Hitchcock, such shots in Blackmail "establish rhythmic and structural patterns by carefully placed repetitions that create constant echoing effects."

As with Margot, the framing here reinforces what the story is already bracing to tell us: Tracy hasn't got the chance of a sno-cone in a pizza oven. But there is more to this than mere technical film  grammar. Gottlieb adds: "Hitchcock's cinematic ingenuity is no mere formalist exercise but a means to strengthen Blackmail as a provocative critique of the forces of order and authority in society, a disapproving dramatization of how men silence women and attempt to shape them to suit their interests, and a case study in guilt."

Much the same could be said for Dial M. For instance, in the shot of Margot's hand above, the sense is reinforced that her beauty and wealth are no match for the male-dominated world that now casts a hostile eye on her—though in the final verdict, its law enforcement sector, at least, is more benign and prone to justice than that presented in the earlier film, even if its Inspector Hubbard (John Williams) had to go rogue and commit "highly irregular" acts in the service of justice.*

Blackmail was Hitch's farewell to silent movies, and in later interviews, in describing the end of that era, he singled out this shot, whose shadows paint a silent villain's mustache on Crewe's face:

This effect casts a glooming spell on what has up til then been a light mood, wiping the smile off our face with one last joke. While I don't think Hitch did quite the same thing in Dial M, the plot follows a similar arc: for the first part of the film, Wendice's upper crust humor carries the show, rendering his murder plot an intellectual exercise. And then, similar to the shift in mood in Blackmail, the following brief (silent era) chiaroscuro scene abruptly changes everything, as Lesgate emerges from the shadows to carry out his diabolical orders:

There is, however, at least one difference between the two films that I should mention. In Blackmail, these hands extend in from the side of the frame. Not so in Dial M. In that project, Hitch exploited the depth dimension to achieve similar emotional effects, giving those scenes an added subjective boost by placing his action toward the bottom of the frame, where the 3D imagery appeared to mingle with the front rows of he audience, as in this celebrated shot:

In another shot that echoes both the murder scene and Margot's plea for mercy, Inspector Hubbard presents the key that exonerates Margot and convicts the real villain, Wendice.

In order to make Dial M for Murder, Hitchcock rummaged around in a bag of tricks devised a quarter century earlier and adapted them to a new format. Along the way, he added a phrase or two to the language of 3D film and made an enduring favorite in the Hitchcock catalog. People may not be able to explain why a movie like this gets under their skin. All they know is they can't take their eyes off of it.
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*Ever notice that Margot is the only female character to appear in Dial M? Only two other women are mentioned in passing: "poor Miss Wallace," the victim of Lesgate's murderous greed and Maureen, who's "such a filthy cook." By contrast, there are the men of Dial M, whose college breeding and club membership guarantee special privileges. Even sleazy Lesgate and daft Mark Halliday (Robert Cummings) are members of this fraternity of men. It's in this world that Margot must defend her life and honor. In the final reckoning, it takes a near-miracle to save her when Inspector Hubbard rises above class and the rules of the game to make sure justice is served.
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Alfred Hitchcock and the Case of the Curious Continuity Error

This is the fifth installment of a five-post series about Dial M for Murder.
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5

Alfred Hitchcock's films have a peculiarly enchanted quality. It's a world where an ordinary glass of milk can become a harbinger of death, a portrait painting may stare you down and a statue might perform an interpretive dance.

The figurine in Richard Hannay's hallway in The 39 Steps all but sounds the alarm that an intruder has broken in.

That knack for imbuing ordinary props with extraordinary qualities served him well with Dial M for Murder, whose plot twists depend on such commonplace objects as telephones and keys. In fact, it was almost a necessity.

For an auteur used to allowing his films many months' gestation, Hitchcock practically shot Dial M on the fly. Given a few scant weeks to assemble cast and crew, he had to settle for only minor adjustments in adapting Frederick Knott's hit play for the screen. Shooting covered a mere 36 days. On the plus side, he had basically one set to design and decorate: a single-bedroom flat in West London's tony Maida Vale district, occupied by Tony and Margot Wendice (Ray Milland and Grace Kelly). Citing "shocking taste" to his friend and one-time business partner Sydney Bernstein, he elbowed the set decorator out of his way and took over that aspect of the production. A 1954 press release drawled that "because he is a man of taste and culture, Hitchcock hand-picked many of the props, including an original [lesbian artist] Rosa Bonheur oil painting, long hidden in Warners’ property gallery, and a pair of valuable Wedgewood vases." Donald Spoto adds that he ordered "Staffordshire figurines for the mantel." (For the record, two vases sit on the mantel, along with an array of tennis trophies, while a figurine adorns a side table by the door. I'm not sure where Spoto's other figurine(s) are.)

Birds flit through almost every one of Hitchcock's films, always hinting at danger or evil. In this case, thanks to the Asian-themed vases, a bird seems to swoop (kinda sorta) toward Margot as she buckles under the weight of her private guilt and of the false accusations aimed at her.

Taken as a whole, the Wendices' art collection runs the gamut between classical and exotic. Tastefully eclectic, it emphasizes Asian art and style, at least with regard to the statuary and furnishings. These pieces, along with a Modern Primitive painting of a church, reinforce the film's transcendent quality, that more is going on than meets the eye or even the mechanics of plot and character.

If there is one overarching impression the set makes, it's that the Wendices are people of taste. Coffee table books about Da Vinci, Bellini and the French Impressionists lie casually about. Their well-appointed liquor stock ranges from special occasion brandy to "an indifferent Port."

As in many Hitchcock movies, especially the tennis-themed Strangers on a Train of which Dial M could almost be a sequel, doubles abound. There are the two jade lamps, two Wedgewood vases and a photo of Tony holding a pair of tennis rackets. Though it didn't make the final design, Hitch's notes also called for objects on the mantlepiece to be "visually doubled in number by the wall mirror behind them." There is the ornate pair of wooden chairs that resemble the chairs Johnnie gave to Lina in Suspicion. Tony's repeated whipping-shut of the curtains -- an apparent continuity error (or is it?), for he actually shut them twice -- and the repeated high-angle shots tracing and retracing the steps of the crime all add to the film's uncanny atmosphere that, as Freud wrote, "forces upon us the idea of something fateful and inescapable when otherwise we should have spoken only of 'chance.'"

This is of a piece with the film's 3D experience itself, which Hitch used to help conjure up the feeling that the audience had been mystically transported into the film. That sensation was reinforced by Asian or Asian-inspired furnishings and other touches hinting at Eastern mysticism. It even finds its way into the dialogue, as Margot and Tony reminisce about their experiences with the Maharaja in India.

There's one piece in particular that merits special attention. But first, I need to set the stage. One of Dial M's primary themes has to do with watchfulness. Tony, as the mastermind behind the murder plot, must remain on the alert and on his toes throughout the movie. Yet, he is superseded by even more alert watchmen.

Watchmen abound in this film, which opens with a view of a cop stationed right outside the couple's home.

Nothing gets by Chief Inspector Hubbard (John Williams, in a reprise of his role on Broadway). As a bookend to the opening shot, Dial M for Murder closes with one last look at the film's Chief Observer.

Tony acted in secret -- or so he thought. But there was, it can be said, a watchman right inside his home, carefully hand picked by the director himself. This figurine of a Chinese woman stands like an inscrutable sentinel, a partner in vigilance with the English Bobby that patrols the street outside their home. She appears in dozens of shots, from every angle.

In what may be another continuity error, but which is creepy nonetheless, the statuette seems to turn its head to follow the action, facing the audience head-on. I believe this is deliberate: from Blackmail to Psycho, Hitch's artwork often looks straight into the camera, to uncanny fourth-wall-breaking effect. Even more interestingly, this supposed "error" actually happens twice in the movie.

Vigilance is the key to stopping the Tony Wendices of this world from getting out of hand. Luckily, there are those who, like the inspector, are willing to work above the rules (“Highly irregular, I know!”) in order to serve justice. Ironically, the film's closing lines are delivered by the villain, who is mixing cocktails: “I suppose you're still on duty, inspector?” – a nod, not only to Chief Inspector Hubbard of the film, but to an eternal Inspector whose justice always prevails in the long run.

Though Dial M for Murder remains popular – and for good reason – it was not Hitch's most satisfying project. Years later, he claimed that he'd phoned his performance in, but that was just a canard from an old Cockney who couldn't resist a bad pun. The fact is, Hitch devoted his usual meticulous preplanning and research to the film, making sure that the Margot's hanging judge was wearing the appropriate powdered wig and instructing a remote crew to record London's traffic sounds, where another director might settle for stock street noise. He also said that he “had the floor [outside the apartment] made of real tiles so as to get the sound of the footsteps.” Though almost all of Hitch's films are models of cinematographic perfectionism, Dial M is uniquely masterful; each shot is a perfectly composed work of art. Yet, for all that, it is so fluidly shot and edited and the acting so natural – Ray Milland's suave performance gave Cary Grant a run for his money – that it goes down like a snifter of fine brandy. Wherever he went, Alfred Hitchcock was the smartest man in the room, but I would bet that he would reply to such a charge as self-effacingly as Tony: “Not really, I've just had time to think things out, to put myself in your position.”

Hitch also acquired one valuable prize from the film: this was his first venture with Grace Kelly, whom he subsequently transformed into a movie star in Rear Window and To Catch a Thief, before she was scooped into the clouds and rechristened Princess Grace of Monaco. Sadly, under circumstances eerily reminiscent of scenes from the latter film, in 1982 she died in a car accident on the cliffside roads above Monte Carlo. I've been searching for her ever since.