Summer of Hitchcock: Dial M for Murder

This summer My Friend Amy is hosting a Summer of Hitchcock, where we watch a selection of Alfred Hitchcock movies and discuss them on our blogs and twitter. This week we watched Dial M for Murder.
First off this is going to sound completely horrible, but I could only watch this movie for 50 minutes before I had to read the spoiler and then skip all the way to the end. Why? Well I can't watch movies (or read books) where the villain purposefully gets away with their evil deed for most of the plot. I have to skip to the end to find out how all is resolved and that the good guy is finally redeemed. I sound like a horrible person because I've skipped out on most of the movie, but I just couldn't handle it!

This is the first movie I've seen with Grace Kelly and I can see why the prince of Monaco married her! She's stunningly beautiful in the movie, although I'm not too fond of the British accent. I really loved her clothes in this movie. I really did not like Tony's character. Other than the obvious reasons of why I don't like him, his personality is just the type of character I hate. When they're smarmy and think they know better than everyone. I really hated how he blackmailed Swann into doing his dirty work. I mean he freaking stalked him, saying stuff like "I felt like I owned you". I mean sheesh, grow some and do it yourself. It's pretty interesting that in most cases you would feel for the husband, who had a cheating wife, but in this scenario, you're rooting for the cheating wife and her lover.

The death scene is absolutely cheesy. I mean, really cheesy. The jerking movements are just classic. BTW Swann was played by the same guy who played Professor Dent in Dr. No, the first James Bond movie. When he came onscreen in this one, I immediately recognized his face. Oh and I loved Hitchcock's cameo in this movie. I won't spoil it but it's funny because he's practically staring at you but you're too busy looking at something else so you don't realize it's him until the scene is just about to end.

This movie is not scary, it's more of backwards whodunit, where you know the outcome, you're just trying to figure it out in reverse. I believe there was a remake of this movie done a few years ago with Michael Douglas, Gwyneth Paltrow and Viggo Mortenson, called A Perfect Murder.

One final note: love the combing of the 'stache.