Hello everyone!! Lisa from Boondock Ramblings and I are back to watching and sharing about comfy cozy (and sometimes, chilling) movies for the fall season. Feel free to join in with us!! Our link will be live for a whole week after we post about a movie. You can find Lisa’s post here.

This week’s movie is Dial M for Murder, another Hitchcock film. This one stars Grace Kelly, Ray Milland, and Anthony Dawson and is summarized on IMDB as “A former tennis star arranges the murder of his adulterous wife.”

They probably have the same problem I do – not wanting to reveal anything about this movie so they kept their summary short and sweet.

Dial M for Murder is a typical Hitchcock, full of the twists and turns and tension that we are used to. This movie wastes no time at all in getting right down to it either. The movie starts building tension immediately, as Margot and Mark are in Margot and Tony’s apartment, anticipating his return home. Margot reveals that she has gotten two letters, blackmailing her over her adulterous relationship with Mark. As they are discussing what this means and what she should do, Tony arrives home, interrupting them.

And honestly, right from this point on, the game begins.

The viewer knows everything that is happening in this movie, unlike in Rear Window when we could only see what Jeff saw. Here, we see everything unfolding before us and despite knowing all the facts, we helplessly watch as things play out and keep us on the edges of our seats. Billy and I were fairly silent as we watched this movie; normally we chat here and there, or have little comments, but for this one, we were drawn in right from the start and barely spoke.

The movie for the most part takes place in one room, Tony and Margot’s ground floor apartment, and the fear that Hitchcock can create just using that one little room, a simple setting, is pure genius, and so much rests on the performances of the actors, all of which played their roles with equal talent and genius. I admittedly had a few scenes where I gasped, surprised or shocked, and scenes where I felt like shouting at the screen – I was all in. I really really didn’t like Tony, and he played the role of a diabolical schemer so very well.

The actual “big scene” was so scary, I barely took a breath! And when Grace Kelly flung out her hand, like in the movie poster, it sent chills down my spine.

This movie really did keep us guessing, and well, I loved it. It was perfect for mid-October, a movie that was a bit scary but not too scary, not gory, and as we made ourselves comfy, with our popcorn and for me, a glass of red wine this time instead of tea, it was that perfect near Halloween feeling. When I was younger I found it in horror movies and haunted houses; now I find it with old classic Hitchcock movies watched from the comfort of my bed.

Did you watch with us? Add your post to our linky, or if you’d rather, share your comments below! The more the merrier! Find Lisa’s post here!

https://fresh.inlinkz.com/js/widget/load.js?id=c0efdbe6b4add43dd7ef

Next week we are watching Practical Magic starring Sandra Bullock and Nicole Kidman, or if you would rather, throw in a wild card movie of your choice! This post will live up on Halloween!

And one final thing – we are having a watch party for Chocolat! Stayed tuned for more details but the gist is that we will all watch independently, we will press play at the same time, then discuss and chat during the movie on our discord, The Dames! I am setting up a room today for the discussion of all of our movies – feel free to join and poke around. If you are nervous because you are not familiar with discord, well, I am still figuring it out as well!