Am I the only one...
Who wants the husband to get away with it? Lets those cheaters hang!
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MovieChat Forums > Dial M for Murder (1954) Discussion > Am I the only one...
I felt the same way as well. Maybe that's why i didn't like the movie too much
Kubrickian.
I know what you mean, but Grace Kelly hanged? No thanks.
shareI love that someone picked up on the fact that it's strange for people to sympathise with the wife considering she's guilty of infidelity. Such a good catch - in the '50s, it was rare to find sympathy with a woman who strayed outside of the marriage bed.
However, it's kind of a running theme with Hitchcock movies; he painted a picture of REAL women the way he saw them, not as how the rest of Hollywood felt morally obligated to paint them for the audience.
Hitchcock didn't like the ideals Hollywood had about how women really were or how women SHOULD be, and he chose to pick up the stories with the grittier true to life character types who lived as women really did, even if it was behind closed doors or otherwise - and they were usually still characters you could sympathise with regardless of what they had done.
It wasn't just Margot in "Dial M for Murder" who was promiscuous and had affairs. If you've seen the other Hitchcock movies you'll see most of his female characters aren't morally tied to the "No sex before marriage" and "no cheating during marriage" rules. (I'll spoiler this incase no one has seen these movies and intends to).
Rebecca: Rebecca's character (while never being seen) is constantly mentioned as having had numerous affairs during her marriage, including with Jack Flavell. She even lied and told Maxim she was pregnant with another man's child.
Psycho: Marion meets Sam in a hotel to have a love-affair in a rent by the hour room - something they've done frequently on his "business trips" to Phoenix.
Rear Window: Lisa decides to "spend the night" with Jeff during the middle of the movie, bringing a rather slinky (but probably blatantly sexy) neglege set to wear for the sleepover. (Whether they do or don't is never mentioned but the intention is enough).
Marnie: While Marnie herself has a somewhat disturbed attitude to sex (understandably), her mother apparently didn't and used it as a way to get by, via prostitution.
With the exception of Rebecca's character, the others were all fairly characters that we could like (or sympathise with) regardless of their infidelity or promiscuity (is that even a word or did I just make it up?!). Hitchcock liked the gritty "details" like sex and infidelity included in his characters, because it gave them more dimension and added something to the story. And somehow he still managed to do it without making the characters unlikeable. Incredible, really.
I think the husband Tony would just hire the best lawyer in London, get the inspector's evidence thrown out on legal technicalities and go free that way. Unless English law at the time was more liberal, the inspector's methods didn't seem to be proper police procedure.
shareI loved Ray Milland - such a more weasely version of James Stewart - however Grace Kelly is too likable in this.. I wasn't rooting for anyone.
shareIn real life, it sometimes happens that no one involved in a murder is particularly nice. A man who fooled around with a vulnerable married woman, even if her marriage was bad, was a swine back in the 50s. Why'd Margo marry such an older man when she had the money anyway? Usually it's the gold-digging young woman who marries the rich, older man.
Milland was well past his prime by 1954, though still a great actor. Bob Cummings was playing a glib, smarmy playboy, his standard role. He was a good actor, but after he came back from WWII, he never tried to expand his acting range much. That's why Mark was no unlikable.
Even if Tony gets off on whatever charge on a legal technicality, he still loses because he's getting divorced from his cash machine. There is no way she's staying married to him after all this.
I really wanted him to get away with it, or at least take out Halliday somehow. The nerve of him trying to make the husband say he did it, then he gets the girl! He was very arrogant and irritating. I also disliked Kelly's character in this one. She's a cheater too, and isn't really seen to be good for anything throughout the movie.
This isn't Hitchcock's best, but the villain sure was great. Hitch really had a knack for creating good villains, didn't he?
We invest so much time and energy in Ray Milland's character that he is the hero to us, regardless of his deeds and his wife's misdeeds. If he is nabbed, that investment is lost.
shareWell next time bet on a better horse then. Anyway, he acts like a dick, he looks like a dick - in short, he´s a dick. Must have missed the heroic part. So please speak for yourself. WE invested nothing. YOU did.
But at least Milland CAN ACT while Cummings is just painful to watch. What an utterly awful performance.
"facts are stupid things" - Ronald Reagan
i was sort of hoping he would get away with it,just because Bob Cummings is a clown-like he is in almost every movie.it might have been even better if HE were killed in this film.
shareAre you the only one?
No, I also wanted Wendice to get away with it. Milland's performance is one of the best I've ever seen.
I seriously felt like punching the sh!t out of Halliday when he told Wendice to confess and get locked in jail to save that cheating slut Margot's life. If Halliday wanted to save his lover's life, he should've confessed to the crime instead. I seriously wish that Wendice would've decked him in the face.
Cheating with another man's wife is, in my opinion, worse than doing what Wendice did. You guys have to give Wendice some props because not a lot of people would have taken their wife cheating on them so lightly. In reality, Wendice would have broken Halliday's skinny little neck and probably kicked the hell out of his wife when they were "making spaghetti" and he was watching through the window. If not then, when he was caught at the end it would've been another episode of cops with Wendice trying to kill Halliday. I would've given this movie a 10/10 if Halliday had gotten away with the crime. I was screaming at the tv for Wendice to not open the door at the end...
franzkabuki~ Well next time bet on a better horse then. Anyway, he acts like a dick, he looks like a dick - in short, he´s a dick. Must have missed the heroic part. So please speak for yourself. WE invested nothing. YOU did.
Spoken like a dick.
Why was Bob Cummings so awful to watch? It usually was unbearably painful to sit through his performances. His show, Love that Bob, was really tiresome and what a tedious premise: Bob is a womanizing photographer of pretty girls and is always trying to get entangled with one of his models. Uggh. His Twilight Zone appearance was pretty good, King Nine Will Not Return - see it, if you can.
He wasn't so terribly awful in Hitchcock's Saboteur. He wasn't great, but it wasn't so painful to watch him, at least, not nearly so much as in this film.
I think that his naturally annoying demeanor, combined with the sleazy adulterous character in this story, makes him the one that most people will want to see working the "swing shift" on the gallows.
Ray Milland was always utterly charming and played the intelligent and suave sophisticate with great aplomb. Admittedly, he is getting a little over-the-hill in this picture. If no one is familiar with his earlier work, see Beau Geste, or The Uninvited or Ministry of Fear, to name of few of my favorite Ray Milland performances from his prime.
I know I did, he was quite a likable character. Too bad perfect murder didn't existed in 50's movies...
shareYou might have found him likable, but that doesn't make him less evil, self-centered, cold or manipulative. I have to admit that I've never quite understood people whose moral codes value an intelligent, charismatic psychopath so highly.
Characters like Tony Wendice or Hannibal Lector make for interesting reading (or watching), but I don't think I would ever say I wanted the to get away with whatever crime because they were likable. When it enhances the story line like the end of "Silence of the Lambs", I find it a good choice of the screenwriter - but not because personality trumps actions.
Don't get me wrong - I think that Ray Milland did a bang-up job here; but I'm not sure what about the character was really "likable", anyway. Intelligent and quick-witted - certainly. Focused, strong-willed and a master of coercion, sure. But likable? I don't see that at all.
His wife was more evil then him, she started all the mess... Was I supposed to root for her?
shareI don't think she was evil. Perhaps she felt unloved and lonely, but not evil. She was (at the very beginning of the film) willing to stay with her husband. At least she did express some reluctance to continue her fling with the Cummings character and reveal all to her husband.
What I noticed, and think was more of a comment on the era than the woman, was how STUPID Grace Kelly's character was. She won't go to a movie because her husband doesn't want her to. He makes up a story as to why the police were phoned so late after the murder, and she goes along with it. SHEESH!(or should I say SHEEP) This incredible inability to stand up for herself made her character difficult for me to root for.
As to the male characters, my allegiance wavered throughout the film. This is probably what Hitchcock wanted. I can understand the the polish and twisted brilliance of Milland's husband (BTW, was crazy for him in The Uninvited). And the boyish charm and exuberance of Cumming's writer/boyfriend also had a certain appeal. Perhaps if we emptied Cummings head and poured in Milland's brain?
In the end, my favorite character was John William's quietly crafty police detective.
Having an affair is worse than murdering someone for her money? You have a very strange set of values.
shareI think Tony Wendice is sympathetic in the sense that he's genuinely very smart and we spend most of the film closest to him knowing his thoughts. Objectively, murder is worse than cheating so I was satisfied in the end but I did feel for Tony as he was getting his last drink.
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'Characters like Tony Wendice or Hannibal Lector make for interesting reading (or watching), but I don't think I would ever say I wanted them to get away with whatever crime because they were likable. When it enhances the story line like the end of "Silence of the Lambs", I find it a good choice of the screenwriter - but not because personality trumps actions.'
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Tony Wendice and Hannibal Lector are as different as chalk and cheese!!!!!!
There is no way that I could ever feel in any way sympathetic towards Hannibal Lector who was the epitomy of everything that is evil and depraved - an animal who kills and tortures other human beings merely for his own perverted pleasure.
Tony Wendice was the epitomy of a successful man, a tennis star (based on Fred Perry perhaps?) who had won several championships at Wimbledon and the US etc who was an eligible, good looking guy (like Cary Grant perhaps) the dream man that many women wanted to catch and make their husband.
The biggest and first mistake that Tony Wendice made in the first place was falling in love with and marrying Margot, an heiress who had been born with a silver spoon in her mouth and spoilt rotten by dotting parents who grew up having anything she wanted and developed into a totally selfish and self centred adult, me first, me second and me third. She married Tony because he was good looking and a tennis star - a trophy husband that she could show off to all her friends - 'look at me, look at what I've bagged'.
But of course after she had married Tony she didn't want to accompany him on his tennis tournaments to the USA, France, Australia etc. Oh no that would mean a disruption to her luxurious way of life, horror of horrors!!!! she wasn't going to let a trival thing like a having a husband get in the way of horse riding and polo with her friends, lavish parties at the Country Club, thrice weekly appointments at the hairdresser and beauty salon.
This meant that there were long periods of seperation between them as Tony was away playing tennis. After a few years she didn't like that either and started an affair with another guy - the bland and colorless Mark Halliday.
It was only after he found out about this that Tony Wendice turned into a bad guy - and he made his second mistake to decide to hire Swann to murder her. Of course murder is never the answer, but you can see what drove Tony to attempted murder and what made made viewers of this story feel so sympathetic towards him.
Now if he had decided to file for divorce citing Margot's selfishness and infidelity he would have got everyone's sympathy but that wouldn't have resulted in a very intersting or watchable movie!!!!!!
I read the character very differently from you. Tony Wendice chose Margot because she was the richest of his available groupies. It was a deliberate choice, based on the money she had, and her potential pliability. He makes it fairly clear that he considered her his "meal ticket" (remember, back then, athletes weren't necessarily rich). Don't get me wrong - Margot is hardly a saint. She's got definite flaws. But as soon as Tony felt that his future financial stability was threatened, he began to look at ways to ensure his happiness without regard for her well-being at all.
I don't see him "turning into" a bad guy - he was always pretty self-centered. It's just that he had flair and charisma. Frankly, he scares me - because under his superficial charm lies a cold and calculating machine. Tony never considered divorce, because then, he wouldn't get it all.
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