Dial ‘M’ for Murder: The Angie Dickinson Remake

Onscreen adultery rarely looked more glamorous than when it was being committed by Angie Dickinson, who followed her turn as one of the more significant straying spouses in the history of cinema—in Brian De Palma’s 1980 classic, Dressed to Kill—with a TV remake of another notable tale of extramarital betrayal, Dial ‘M’ for Murder. In an intriguing departure from other adaptations of Frederick Knott’s stage play, Dickinson was 50 years old when she tackled the role of Margot Wendice—twice as old as Grace Kelly, who played Margot in Alfred Hitchcock’s Dial ‘M’ for Murder (1954).

That Dickinson’s Margot and Christopher Plummer’s Tony Wendice are an age-appropriate pairing subtly reconfigures their power dynamic. Grace Kelly’s youthfulness, contrasted with the Ray Milland’s cool, mature composure as a retired tennis player, enhanced her character’s vulnerability. In Andrew Davis’ A Perfect Murder, a 1998 remake, Gwyneth Paltrow would’ve been more believable as the daughter, not wife, of an embattled Michael Douglas. Dickinson, who held her own in westerns, exploitation flicks, police fare, and opposite the Rat Pack, was no ingénue by 1981, raising the domestic stakes.

Unhappy with Tony, who struggled to find fulfillment (financial and otherwise) in his second career as a businessman, the London-based Margot had an affair the previous year with Max Halliday (Michael Parks), a mystery writer and fellow American. Now Max has returned and wants a reunion, but Margot admits she never told Tony about the affair: “He’s stopped feeling sorry for himself about his tennis and he’s trying really hard to make a go of his new job. It’s difficult to explain, Max, but he’s everything now he wasn’t before. He’s caring and considerate… and he needs me, Max. He does. I’m sorry.”

Tony needs her, all right—he needs her to die, so he can inherit her sizable estate. “I always intended to marry for money, although I had to settle for something less than I hoped for,” he nastily divulges to Swann (Ron Moody), a larcenous former tennis acquaintance selected to do his dirty work. Plummer and Moody’s scenes are the most thrilling in the film. As Tony, the suavest of bullies, confidently steers the conversation to the topic of murder-for-hire, there’s genuine suspense in what is—and isn’t—said, and whether Swann will bend to his will. Their interplay is slightly reminiscent of conversations between Farley Granger (also playing a tennis pro) and Robert Walker in Hitchcock’s Strangers on a Train.

Screenwriter John Gay keeps the story free of unnecessary dramatic flourishes. (His No Way to Treat a Lady is one of my sentimental favorite cat-and-mouse thrillers; he also adapted Hitchcock’s Shadow of a Doubt for TV in 1991, with Mark Harmon in the Joseph Cotten role.) There’s the requisite blackmail caper involving a love letter from Max, stolen from Margot’s purse to set Tony’s carefully plotted scheme into action. The whirlwind trial that finds Margot facing execution is conveyed via newspaper headlines. Gay respects that Dial ‘M’ for Murder is a claustrophobic tale set primarily in one room. Opening it up too much, as in A Perfect Murder, risks releasing its tension.

Parks’ Max has the same affable, boyish appeal as Robert Cummings’ Mark. When Margot asks if he believes in the perfect murder, he replies “Absolutely,” but doesn’t trust himself to carry it out. “In stories, it always ends the way the author wants it to,” he says. “In real life, it’s not like that. I imagine my murders would be much like my bridge—make some damn stupid mistake, wouldn’t realize that everybody’s staring at me.” Anthony Quayle is smooth as the cagey Inspector Hubbard, if not quite as smooth as his predecessor, John Williams. His exasperation with Max’s meddling in the case provides one of our few laughs: “Writers. Think you know it all, don’t you? God save me from the gifted amateur.”

There isn’t much suspense or desperation in Max’s crusade to save Margot from the gallows; we all know how Dial ‘M’ for Murder ends. The enjoyment is in the taut buildup, nearly all of it generously provided by Plummer, who makes Tony less a spoiled playboy than a grand sociopath. Dickinson is outclassed here to such an extent that Margot sometimes feels like an afterthought. Her limited range is partly to blame, but mostly it’s a byproduct of costarring with such a force of nature. Director Boris Sagal knew what he had with Plummer, who is frequently cloaked in shadow and given the low-angle shot treatment. Befitting a suffocatingly overbearing husband, he’s in nearly every scene.

“You’re smart, aren’t you?” Swann asks as Tony’s murderous vision comes into view.

“Not really,” Tony correctly replies. But he’s rich in charisma and unburdened by a conscience, which makes him just as dangerous.

Additional screen caps will be posted on Instagram later this week.

Streaming and DVD availability

Dial ‘M’ for Murder (1981) hasn’t been released on DVD and isn’t on any authorized streaming platforms, though you can find an acceptable VHS transfer on YouTube. If you want to compare it to other adaptations, Hitchcock’s version is streaming at Amazon and is available on DVD and Blu-ray, as is Andrew Davis’ 1998 reworking with Michael Douglas, Gwyneth Paltrow and Viggo Mortensen.

^{Disclosure: As an Amazon Associate I earn a small commission from qualifying purchases.}

… But wait, there’s more!

While you can find some of Angie Dickinson’s better known theatrical releases, including Big Bad Mama and Big Bad Mama II, on DVD and streaming sites, her telefilm output is generally more elusive, even on YouTube. Much of that work was from an era that predated the widespread availability of VCRs, so even when you find something interesting, the image quality’s often frustratingly lacking. There’s no time like the present for this oversight to be addressed by the entities that own the rights to these productions.

One of the easier ways to discover Dickinson’s charms is by revisiting the very dated Police Woman, a police procedural she starred in from 1974 to 1978. (She reunited with show runner Robert L. Collins for 1989’s Prime Target, which I reviewed earlier this year.) My wife and I started watching it a few months ago, when it was still on Tubi. Just a few episodes into our viewing, it disappeared from the site, so we picked it up on DVD and are midway through the series. She’s requested I write about Police Woman here, so you can expect a deeper look at it in the near future.