Dial M for Murder

Dial M for Murder (1954)

Timing: 1:45 (105 min)

8/10
2819

8.073/10
67968

8.1/10
204000

All about film

Video 15

Photo 73

Actors and characters

Release date

1954-05-29

Country

United States

Production

Warner Bros. Pictures

Genre

Thriller, Crime

Budget

$1 400 000

Revenue

$24 270

Website

Director

Alfred Hitchcock

Actors

Ray Milland, Grace Kelly, Robert Cummings, John Williams, Anthony Dawson, Leo Britt, Patrick Allen, George Leigh, George Alderson, Robin Hughes
All actors and roles (10)

Scenario

Producer

Alfred Hitchcock

Operator

Robert Burks

Composer

Dimitri Tiomkin

Artist

Audition

Editing

Rudi Fehr
All team (11)

• Alfred Hitchcock's cameo – a photo from a reunion (one of Hitchcock's most inconspicuous cameos).
• For close-up shots of the phone, large-scale models of a finger and a phone were built, as the camera could not focus on a regular phone.
• The film was shot in 36 days.
• The film was originally shot in 3D.
• Alfred Hitchcock (1899-1980) chose an expensive red velvet peignoir for Grace Kelly (1929-1982) in the scene where she is talking on the phone. Kelly protested, stating that no woman in the world would wear such a thing to answer the phone when she was alone and already in bed. According to Kelly, a woman would answer the phone in her nightgown. Hitchcock admitted she was right, he liked the resulting scene, and subsequently allowed her to decide all wardrobe matters for herself in all of his films.
• The Warner Bros. studio insisted on filming in 3D, even though public enthusiasm for it was waning, and Alfred Hitchcock himself was confident that the film would ultimately be released in a conventional format. He wanted the first shot of the film to show a finger dialing 'M' on a rotary phone, but the 3D camera was unable to properly capture the close-up. The director therefore ordered a giant finger and a corresponding oversized phone dial to be made of wood.
• Warner Bros. literally forced Alfred Hitchcock to make this film, citing contractual obligations. He was so uninterested in what was happening on set that the director stated he could easily have given instructions by phone, and the film would not have suffered for it.
• During the filming of the murder scene, Alfred Hitchcock even lost weight due to worry. He ran rehearsal after rehearsal, and then shot numerous takes to capture the entry of the scissors into the body exactly as he envisioned it.