Jump to: navigation, search

Boston Globe (09/Apr/1981) - Dial M Updated

Details

Article

Dial M Updated

Television remakes of good, old theatrical movies inevitably invite comparison, and tonight's NBC version of "Dial M For Murder" (9-11 p.m., Channel 4) is no exception. Nor does the updated version, the second TV adaptation of the 1952 Broadway hit play, suffer in the process of comparison.

Frederick Knott's artfully crafted "perfect crime" stage drama, a British import starring Maurice Evans, was transformed by Alfred Hitchcock into the 1954 Hollywood thriller of taut suspense and murderous intrigue, starring Grace Kelly, Ray Milland and Robert Cummings. The NBC made-for-TV cast is headed by Angie Dickinson, Christopher Plummer and Michael Parks in the Eternal Triangle roles.

The key supporting role of Chief Inspector Hubbard, in which John Williams stole all his scenes and emerged as one of the stars of the Hitchcock film, is ably performed tonight by veteran character actor Anthony Quayle. Ron Moody is the reluctant assassin, Capt. Lesgate, a character which he handles with some subtle variation and a deal more sympathy than the movie performance by Anthony Dawson.

Kelly seemed more vulnerable than Dickinson as Margot Wendice, the unfaithful wife whose husband plots to kill, not as much to punish her infidelity as to inherit her fortune. Kelly's blondness was more fragile, her sensuality much cooler.

Dickinson's reaction to the murderous attack by her husband's hired killer — Margot stabs Lesgate in desperation with a pair of household scissors as he is strangling her — seems more in character with a Sgt. Pepper of "Police Woman." For some reason, typecasting hangover or whatever, Dickinson's Margot impresses as one accustomed to surviving and quickly recovering from near— fatal felonious experiences.

Ray Milland was, somehow, more believable as the greedy, scheming Tony Wendice, a failed man and cuckolded husband, than suave, sophisticated, urbane Plummer. Many say that Plummer's Tony, a bright, daring, deviously charming rogue, is more reminiscent of Evans' stage characterization, which Evans recreated in the earlier TV production.

Michael Parks as Max Halliday, the American mystery story writer and amateur sleuth, is more credible as The Other Man than Cummings' was in his 1954 performance. Cummings was a stereotyped pretty-boy, who played simpy,cuddly, light comedy male leads, and was not the type who seemed likely to fan Kelly's fires.

The real delight of the Hitchcock production was Williams as police inspector Hubbard, whose intricate game of cat-and-mouse with the clever Tony is the play's plot and crux. Playwright Knott created Hubbard as a major character, and Quayle's TV performance — in a different way — lives up to the role as strongly as Williams's movie part.

Moody plays the villainous weakling Lesgate with understanding, as a man cornered by fate, choosing what appears the lesser of two evils.

Retrieved from ‘http://the.hitchcock.zone/w/index.php?title=Boston_Globe_(09/Apr/1981)_-_Dial_M_Updated&oldid=181416’