Man, "Telegraph Road" is an awesome song, but hey, this film ain't too shabby either, even though it leaves you "hanging on the line" in certain places (No, the "1-800-MURDER" joke was not lame enough for me).Īt times, it feels as though the drama is making quite the effort to freshen things up, but in too many other places, it falls short, into familiarity, especially as an Alfred Hitchcock film, complete with formulaic dialogue, predictable plotting and even a touch too much ambiguity for characterization's own good.
I don't know about you guys, but Morse Code confuses me to a practically scary point, so if they ever make a horror film involving telegraphs, then I'll either laugh hysterically or scream whenever I hear that Dire Straits song, you know, more than I usually do. Honestly, phones aren't hugely prominent in this film, although it is probably the first film that made phones scary, which should tell you just how talented Hitchcock was as a suspense filmmaker, because he somehow managed to make phones suspenseful. Well, it was unique in 1954, but now, at a time where "The Simpsons" really did release an episode titled "Dial 'N' for Nerder", I reckon it's safe to say that it's not as much fun anymore, so they may as well bill this as the sequel to Alfred Hitchcock's "Strangers on a Train", "When a Stranger Calls". Oh please, that's not too much cheesier than the actual title here, which I still give a lot of credit for being unique. Well, that's only six digits so if you're looking for a good time, then that girl just gave a wrong and profoundly disturbing number. The star turn, however, is John Williams's disarmingly dapper detective.To receive further assistance, please call 1-800-MURDER.
But Kelly simpers occasionally as the abused adulteress, while Robert Cummings is blandness personified as her beau. He employed colour in a similar way, gradually removing warmer hues to emphasise the chill of reality closing in around Grace Kelly. Whereas most directors settled for hurling a few objects towards the camera to give the viewer a visceral thrill, Hitch used the extra dimension to highlight props and angles and, thus, create a more dislocated atmosphere. Such confinement intensified the action and he further heightened it here by his mischievous use of 3D. As he had demonstrated with Rope (1948) and would do again with his next picture, Rear Window (1954), Hitchcock saw no need to open out the action for the sake of it and relished the chance to play claustrophobic games with the décor of a single set. Indeed, Hitch seemed to be more interested in setting himself technical difficulties than in teasing the audience. Warners had acquired the rights for £30,000 from Sir Alexander Korda (who had originally paid a mere £1,000 for them) and Hitchcock made few alterations to Knott's screenplay.
Clowes's thriller, Dear Murderer, which had been filmed by Arthur Crabtree with Eric Portman in 1947.
It was a neatly constructed affair, although hardly original, as it bore the influence of both the real-life case of ex-RAF office Neville Heath (who had been executed for the murder of two women) and St John L. Knott's play had premiered on the BBC in March 1952 before running for 425 performances in the West End and a further 552 on Broadway. Yet it remains one of his most bleakly amusing and it also reveals a good deal about his approach to film-making. He was never particularly fond of the film. Alfred Hitchcock was struggling with a project called The Bramble Bush, a mistaken identity yarn about a crook who steals a murderer's passport, when he agreed to direct Frederick Knott's adaptation of his own stage success.