Dial M for Murder Synopsis

Dec 5

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Dial M for Murder Synopsis

Alfred Hitchcock’s Dial M for Murder (1954) stars Ray Milland, Grace Kelly, and Robert Cummings.

Ray Milland plays Tony Wendice, a tennis star who finds out about his wife Margot’s (Grace Kelly) affair with an American novelist (Robert Cummings). Tony then elaborately plots Margot’s murder by hiring a killer. When the attempted murder goes wrong, he twists the story to incriminate her. Anthony Dawson co-stars as Charles Swann, the would-be murderer.

Hitchcock’s version of Dial M for Murder, is told mostly from Tony Wendice’s point of view. This point of view, along with Ray Milland’s excelling acting, results in him being one of the most identifiable characters in the movie.

This post is all about Dial M for Murder Synopsis.

Dial M for Murder Synopsis: Margot learns about Mark’s return

The opening scene shows Margot eating breakfast with Tony and reading the newspaper. She notices that Mark Halliday, an American novelist (and her lover) is coming to visit London from New York.

*The first scene in our Dial M for Murder Synopsis: Margot learns her lover is in town.*

Dial M for Murder Synopsis: Margot is being blackmailed

Margot meets with Mark, and tells him that Tony has changed…we learn that the two of them met when Mark visited London earlier and they became lovers. It’s implied that Tony used to be quite difficult to live with, but he recently changed and she doesn’t know if she wants to leave him anymore.

Mark and Margot had been keeping in touch with letters. She tells him that one of their letters (seems to be the steamiest) was stolen and she was contacted by someone wanting money for it’s return. She had paid the ransom but the letter was never returned.

If you’re a fan of Margot’s gorgeous fashion in this film, you might like this post:

Grace Kelly’s 1950’s fashion in Hithcock’s Dial M for Murder

*The second scene in our Dial M for Murder Synopsis: Margot explains to Mark that she’s being blackmailed.*

*The second scene in our Dial M for Murder Synopsis: Margot shows Mark the blackmail letter she received.*

Dial M for Murder Synopsis: Tony hires a killer

Tony makes an excuse to avoid going out with Margot and Mark, and then has a man over on the pretense of buying a car. It turns out he’s not interested in the man’s car at all, but wants to hire him to kill his wife. This man turns out to be an old colleague of Tony’s who had a bad reputation and Tony learned on following him that he had other things he could blackmail him for.

Tony tells him about how he found about his wife affair, and that he was the one who stole the letter and then blackmailed her about it, hoping it would make her come to him with the full story.

He deliberately drops the letter partway through the story, and the other man picks it up, getting his fingerprints on the letter…now that he has the letter with the man’s fingerprints, he threatens to turn the man in for the blackmail of his wife unless he agrees to kill his wife. (He’ll also pay him a significant amount for the job).

Tony explains the plan:

Margot will be home alone. Tony will leave a key outside the door for the killer. The killer will let himself in and hide behind the large drapes. Tony will call, bringing Margot out of the bedroom. When Margot answers the phone, the killer will have his chance...the idea is that it looks like a botched robbery attempt and sometime when the Police are distracted, Tony will take the key from the hiding place and return it to her handbag. Tony will inherits Margot’s money, pay off the murderer, and then Tony gets away scott-free.

The plan is agreed upon and the time set.

Dial M for Murder Synopsis: Tony take Margot’s house key

Tony sneaks Margot’s house key from her purse as he needs it to leave outside for the murderer…the latch key will become important later on in solving the case.

Dial M for Murder Synopsis: Tony dials M for the attempted murder

As part of the plan, Tony had arranged to call Margot, which would wake her up, putting her in front of the curtain, behind which the killer would be waiting. When she answered the phone with her back towards the window, gave him the opportunity to kill her.

Tony dials the number, and it just happens that the first number for the house aligns with the letter M on the phone.

*The ‘dial M’ part is due to those cool old phones that had letters on them and you had to turn them, remember those?*

Dial M for Murder Scissor scene

The first part of the plot turns out as planned. The would-be killer let himself into the the apartment and waited behind the curtain for Tony’s call. Tony’s call comes a few minutes late as his watch stopped.

Margot comes out an answers the phone, and the killer sneaks up behind her, planning to strangle her as she answers the phone. He almost succeeds, he gets the scarf around her neck and they are struggling on the desk, when she reaches for the scissors that she left out doing Tony’s scrapbooking and stabs the murderer in the back.

*The most suspenseful scene in our Dial M for Murder Synopsis: Charles Swann strangles Margot*

Dial M for Murder Synopsis: Tony sets it up to make her look guilty

Tony, when he gets back from his dinner, now plays the role of a concerned husband, while trying to arrange things to make it look like she killed her blackmailer. He doesn’t let her talk to the Police that night and hides the attempted murder weapon so that it looks like she gave herself the bruises. He also puts the blackmail letter back in the dead man’s pocket, so it looks like she had her blackmailer over and then killed him.

Not entirely sure who plans to kill their blackmailer with scissors in the back, but it seemed to fool the Police for a time.

Dial M for Murder Synopsis: Margot is sentenced to death

Margo is found guilty in court and sentenced to death. Her affair with the writer, combined with the blackmail evidence and the lack of evidence that the husband had destroyed, reflected badly on her to a 1950’s jury.

dial m for murder trial scene grace kelly

dial m for murder what does tony do once he realizes he is caught

Dial M for Murder Synopsis: Saved by the key

Her boyfriend Mark, meanwhile, hasn’t given up this entire time. The day before her execution, he tries to get her husband Tony to confess to doing the crime himself, and incredibly the story that he suggests Tony come up with is precisely what actually happened. Then Tony sees the bag of money that Tony had gotten from the bank (after all he didn’t have to pay the murderer anything after all) and his suspicion turns to him.

He manages to make the Police officer suspicious enough of Tony to devise a simple trap with the house keys. There was no key found on the dead man since Tony had removed it and placed it back in Margot’s purse, thinking it was the key he had taken from her to leave outside the door.

Unknown to Tony, the murderer had actually taken the key from the their hiding place and then replaced it. So the key that Tony took out of the dead man’s pocket was actually the dead man’s own latch key…therefore it wouldn’t work inside their apartment.

Somehow the detective had figured this out, and so they devised a simple test. They had Margot try the door with the key from her purse. Of course it didn’t work and she had no idea why. Then they had Tony try the key. It also didn’t work and he was confused for a moment before realizing as he was walking away his mistake. He then comes back and reveals that he had known about the keys hiding place all along.

This post was all about Dial M for Murder Synopsis