Hitchcocktober Episode 3: All Killer, No Filler: Alfred Hitchcock’s Dial “M” for Murder

By Josh Corman


“If it’s a good movie, the sound could go off and the audience would still have a perfectly clear idea of what’s going on.” – Alfred Hitchcock

The quote above won’t surprise anyone who knows Hitchcock’s earliest work as a silent filmmaker. Those movies, like The Lodger, forced actors and directors and lighting technicians and cinematographers to measure every shot by one criterion: If the image onscreen accurately, effectively conveys the desired emotion of the actors, conjures the desired reaction from the audience, and progresses the story, it works. If not, cut it. Precision, simply put, was the name of the game, and Hitchcock, as much as he was the Master of Suspense, was also the master of precision.

When French filmmaker Francois Truffaut interviewed Hitchcock for his landmark book Hitchcock/Truffaut, he asked Hitch if filmmaking should be taught in universities. Hitchcock said that it should, under two conditions: One, each student should have to serve in all the roles necessary to a film’s production. Two, each student should work first on silent films to hone their eye for powerful images. Hitchcock displayed this mentality in his own work for the rest of his career. Anyone who watches his films today will notice his near-obsession with framing faces during moments of great duress. He expected his actors’ expressions to serve the story, to be as propulsive as the dialogue and the action. Janet Leigh in Psycho, Kim Novak in Vertigo, and Jimmy Stewart in Rear Window: watch just a few minutes of these films with the sound off, and tell me you don’t know exactly how these characters feel, what they’re afraid of, or even what they’ll do next.

Never did the combination of Hitchcock’s silent film mentality translate more perfectly to his American films than in Dial “M” for Murder. The film stars Grace Kelly as the target of a particularly sinister murder plot. Because Dial “M” was adapted from a play, all of the action takes place in just two rooms in a London flat, making it a perfect canvas on which to paint the uncluttered vision of pace and plot that Hitchcock is so famous for. Every shot in this film moves the plot forward, captures an essential emotion or thought played out on the faces of the actors, or foreshadows critical revelations (of which there are plenty – he is the Master of Suspense, after all). Dial “M” for Murder is simply a master class in taut storytelling.

Perhaps this tautness, this bare bones approach to showing the audience only what is most critical to effectively construct the narrative, is the reason that Dial “M” doesn’t receive the same critical or historical attention paid to the Rear Windows and Psychos of Hitchcock’s oeuvre. But that statement itself reveals a problem: this is a picture made first and foremost with audiences, not critics or historians, in mind


Listen, I love the complex character study in Vertigo, the social commentary in Rear Window, the pure artistry of Psycho, and the philosophical explorations of Rope and Notorious. Those are great movies; they show off, and they wear their gold and jewels and skills well. Dial "M" is less adventurous, less grand, but no less great than those outstanding films. There are many moments in each of them during which Hitchcock grips the audience fiercely. But for Dial "M" for Murder's entire 105 minute running time, its director holds the audience in the palm of his hand. No distraction, no fluff, just one perfect image after the other, as seen through the eyes of the master.


By Josh Corman