Grace Kelly’s 1950’s fashion in Hitchcock’s Dial M for Murder (1954)
This post may contain affiliate links.
Grace Kelly 1950’s fashion in Dial M for Murder
Alfred Hitchcock’s Dial M for Murder (1954) is one of his better-known films that has been remade several times, probably the most well-known remake being A Perfect Murder starring Michael Douglas.
Hitchcock’s version stays close to the play it was based on, and is filmed almost entirely in the same room—similar to his next film he created with Grace Kelly, Rear Window.
Grace Kelly stars as Margot Wendice, who is married to Tony Wendice (Ray Milland) but in love with Mark Halliday (Robert Cummings).
Her husband, a retired tennis star who married her for her money, found out about the affair and plots to kill her before she leaves him and he loses the plush lifestyle he’s become accustomed to.
His plot goes wrong when the man he has hired to kill his wife gets killed instead, so he tries to twist the story so that it looks like she has murdered the man instead of killing him in self-defense.
This was Grace Kelly’s first collaboration with Alfred Hitchcock, she would go on to star in two: Rear Window later in 1954, and To Catch A Thief in 1955. Her costumes in the film were designed by Moss Mabry.
This post is all about Grace Kelly 1950s fashion in Dial M for Murder.
Grace Kelly 1950s fashion: Cream-colored dress
We only see Grace Kelly’s first dress for a moment as she’s sitting at the table eating breakfast and reading the newspaper, when she reads that her lover is back in town.
Although the angle isn’t very good, it appears that she is in a robe of some sort, which she has accessorized with a simple pair of pearl earrings, red lipstick and of course, perfectly styled hair.
Grace Kelly 1950’s fashion: Strapless red evening gown
In the next scene, Grace Kelly is talking to her lover, played by Robert Cummings, and explaining to him how her husband Tony’s behavior has changed for the better.
She also tells him about how she saved one of the letters he wrote her was stolen, (must’ve been steamy!) and she was blackmailed about it.
She paid the blackmail money, but never received the letter in return.
She wears her most elaborate dress for this scene, a gorgeous strapless red evening gown with a defined waist and a 1950’s style circle skirt.
She has accessorized with with a simple pendant necklace and matching earrings.
This is closer to the classic 1950’s style that we’re used to seeing Grace Kelly wear, very similar to the dresses she wore in Rear Window.
This is also the brightest color she wears in the film, which was intentionally done by Hitchcock to show how her character gets more somber as the movie develops.
“We did an interesting color experiment with Grace Kelly’s clothing. I dressed her in very gay and bright colors at the beginning of the picture, and as the plot thickened, her clothes became gradually more somber.”
Grace Kelly 1950’s fashion: Red house dress
The evening that the murder is planned, Grace Kelly wears a long sleeved red shirt dress, accessorized with red lipstick and some stud earrings.
Here, her husband is insisting that she stay home because he is going to take her key to the front door and leave it outside in the stairwell for the murderer to be able to come in while she’s sleeping.
They have a bit of an argument, because she wants to go see a movie, but he wants her to stay home, so she agrees to stay home and work on his newspaper clippings.
Grace Kelly 1950’s fashion: White negligee
Perhaps Grace Kelly’s most famous outfit in the film, is her negligee that she is wearing when the hired man tries to strangle her.
Hitchcock builds the suspense as she answers the phone call from her husband, not hearing the murderer creep up behind her.
During the struggle as he is trying to strangle her, she reaches for the scissors that she left out on the desk from doing her husband’s paper clippings and stabs the man in self-defense.
Grace Kelly 1950’s fashion: Blue-gray wool dress
Here is where we really see her outfits become more somber.
She is wearing a conservative blue-gray wool dress, accessorized with more subdued makeup when she is tried for the murder of the intruder.
Remember the blackmail that she told her boyfriend about earlier?
Her husband has managed to twist the story to look like she met her blackmailer and then killed him.
Grace Kelly 1950’s fashion: Blue-gray wool dress with brown coat
She is again wearing the same blue-gray wool dress, this time with a brown coat thrown on top in the final scene when the police inspector, along with the help of her boyfriend find out she is innocent.
It all had to do with the house key that her husband had taken earlier and left out for the murderer.
Unknown to the husband, when the murderer came in, he took the key from the stairwell, unlocked the door, and then replaced it before entering the apartment.
Her husband, when trying to set her up, removed the latch key he found on the dead man, thinking it was the one from the stairwell and had replaced it in his wife’s purse.
In reality, he had actually taken the man’s own latch key and put it in his wife’s purse.
The detective figures out the mistake and tests both her and her husband to see which one would figure it out and realize the killer had replaced the key in the stairwell.
Of course the husband realizes it and finds the key in the stairwell, thus incriminating himself and proving Grace Kelly’s innocence.
This post was all about Grace Kelly 1950s fashion in Dial M for Murder.
This post may contain affiliate links.
What did you think of Grace Kelly’s fashion in Dial M for Murder?
