Ron Miller
Nobody really thinks "Dial M for Murder"
is the all-time best Alfred Hitchcock film, but there are many
who swear it's the all-time best 3-D movie.
That may be faint praise, though -- sort of like saying the lame-brained "White Pongo" is the all-time best film starring a guy in a bleached-blonde gorilla suit, which it may well be, but who cares?
After all, the 3-D boom only lasted about three years, then fizzled without littering the cinema landscape with a surfeit of film classics. Out of more than 50 feature-length films released in 3-D between 1952 and 1955 -- the boom years of the so-called "3-D Era" -- more than half were cheap quickies made to exploit the depth effects that gave spectators the illusion objects were flying off the screen into the audience.
You could spot those films in advance because they usually had the word "SEE" in the newspaper ads, followed by whatever gimmick they had dreamed up to come out of the screen, like this example from the first big 3-D film, "Bwana Devil": "A lion in your lap!"
Universal-International was a little less
specific in its ads for "It Came From Outer Space,"
boasting only that: "Fantastic Sights Leap at You!"
But give RKO the prize for understatement in its ads for "The
French Line," starring big-bosomed Jane Russell: "JR
in 3D. Need we say more?"
Most of the other 3-D films of that period were run of the mill
studio "B" pictures. They were rushed into 3-D production
without any special effort to take advantage of the new process,
such as Paramount's dull costume drama "Sangaree,"
in which fiery Arlene Dahl occasionally threw something at Fernando
Lamas, missed him, but nearly clobbered some of us in the crowd.
MGM's tepid rodeo movie "Arena," kicked a little dust
in our faces, but stirred up little excitement. As for UA's "I,
the Jury," it had no more depth than Mickey Spillane's crude
gumshoe novel, even with 3-D -- and nowhere near the sexiness.
But then there were those few "A" films that would have been good pictures with or without 3-D because they had solid stories and were made by quality filmmakers who refused to flaunt the process at moviegoers like sideshow barkers.
I'm talking about only a small handful of films: Hitchcock's "Dial M for Murder," 20th Century-Fox's "Inferno," Warner Bros.' "Hondo" and, perhaps MGM's "Kiss Me, Kate," though I never got around to seeing that one because I was only 14 when it came out and period musicals starring Kathryn Grayson gave me the willies.
Ironically, Hitchcock's film went into only limited release in 3-D in 1954 and many of those who claim it's the best-ever 3-D film never actually saw it in three dimensions. The now rare 3-D re-release engagements of the film may be the only chance most film fans will have to see it as Hitchcock originally filmed it. (The film plays a special engagement in 3-D at the Stanford Theatre in Palo Alto, CA, starting April 28.)
It's true some of the original 3-D films of the 1950s have been released in 3-D video or telecast in 3-D versions, but mostly they've been in the inferior "anaglyphic" method, which requires viewers to wear red and blue tinted glasses. They just don't deliver the same thrills.
When picking a favorite 3-D film, I'm very partial to "Hondo," the John Wayne western, for a whole lot of reasons. I love westerns and it's a classic of the genre. It made the career of little known frontier author Louis L'Amour, who went on to become the all-time best selling writer of western novels. It also launched the screen career of Geraldine Page, who was nominated for a supporting actress Oscar for her performance as the young widow that drifter Hondo Lane helps in the film. It also gave young James Arness a showcase supporting role, which helped land him the role of Matt Dillon in "Gunsmoke," the TV western than ran an incredible 20 years.
I also should add that director John Farrow (Mia's dad) gave us plenty of 3-D thrills in the picture with its plentiful action scenes. At 14, I was more likely to give four stars to a 3-D picture that kept me dodging, especially if it also engaged my mind, as "Hondo" did.
But the inventiveness of Alfred Hitchcock with the 3-D medium was -- and still is -- abundantly clear in his "Dial M for Murder." It makes you ache to know what Hitch might have done with 3-D if he were using it on "Strangers on A Train," "North by Northwest," or the incomparable "Psycho" instead of an essentially static suspense drama adapted from a stage drama.
Adapted for the screen by Frederick Knott from his
own play, "Dial M" involves the intricate plot worked
out by former British tennis pro Ray Milland to kill his wealthy
American wife, played by Grace Kelly, after he discovers she's
having an affair with American mystery writer Robert Cummings.
It's one of those "perfect crime" mysteries in which
Milland blackmails another man into committing the murder while
providing himself with a perfect alibi.
(If the plot sounds familiar, it may be because you saw the recent remake, "A Perfect Murder," with Michael Douglas and Gwyneth Paltrow in the Milland and Kelly roles.)
Given there's really only one major setting for the movie -- the London apartment of Milland and Kelly -- and only one action sequence -- the murder itself -- Hitchcock had his work cut out for him to make effective use of the three-dimensional process.
But, if you see the film in either 3-D or its better-known "flat" version, you should carefully check out the way Hitch positioned the cameras, even from the opening scenes. You'll notice he almost always placed furniture or objects of some kind in the foreground, which force you to notice the square-edged screen is a "window" you're looking through "into" the scene. In other words, he created a perspective in which you're always conscious of the third dimension of physical depth.
Hitchcock also had the characters often walk into hallways, so you were forced to look deep into the set while remaining aware of the rest of the room in the foreground.
In the 3-D version of the film, this gradually makes you fully aware of the new dimension, but in a natural way. It sets you up for the film's one truly stunning moment when the killer starts to strangle Kelly and, in closeup, her desperately grasping hand reaches way out into the audience as she fumbles for -- and finally comes up with -- the wicked pair of scissors that may save her life.
That scene was immortalized in the signature ads for "Dial M for Murder" -- the hand of a dying woman, coming right out at you -- and makes your mouth water for what Hitch might have done with the "Psycho" shower scene in 3-D.
There's one more stunning use of 3-D right after that sequence: The floor-level shot of scissor blades sinking deep into a human back when the body falls backward onto the floor. The depth sensation in that quick, grotesque moment is awesome.
Because "Dial M for Murder" is
a very effective thriller with a complex, brain-twister finish;
has the serenely beautiful Grace Kelly giving a heart-stopper
performance, and has a moody, frequently stirring musical score
by Dimitri Tiomkin, I'm certainly not going to argue with anyone
who thinks it's the best 3-D film ever made.
It's certainly one of the very best -- and if you get a chance
to see it in 3-D, by all means don't pass it up.
© 2000 by Ron Miller
1. BWANA DEVIL (1952), a tacky film about lions attacking an African railway project. With Robert Stack, Nigel Bruce.
2. MAN IN THE DARK (1953) Edmond O'Brien in a hurried remake of the 1938 thriller "The Man Who Lived Twice."
3. HOUSE OF WAX (1953) Vincent Price as the horribly scarred lunatic who molds wax statues with dead people inside. Remake of the 1933 horror classic "Mystery of the Wax Museum."
4. IT CAME FROM OUTER SPACE (1953) was based on a Ray Bradbury story about aliens called xenomorphs who crash on Earth and start taking over human bodies.
5. FORT TI (1953) was a historical action picture with George Montgomery as a Hawkeye knockoff.
6. SANGAREE (1953) was a historical costume drama based on Frank G. Slaughter's novel, starring Fernando Lamas.
7. ARENA (1953) was a tame rodeo drama starring Gig Young and a host of second-string MGM contract players.
8. ROBOT MONSTER (1953) was a dreadful sci-fi flick about a gorilla from outer space who annihilates everybody on Earth, but can't track down one family that's hiding behind the nearest rock.
9. THE MAZE (1953) was an effective chiller about something in a creepy Scottish castle that gets taken out for a walk each night. Marred by an ultra-dumb finale.
10. THE CHARGE AT FEATHER RIVER (1953) was a frisky Guy Madison western with the infamous 3-D tobacco-spitting sequence.
11. OUTLAW TERRITORY (1953), also known as Hannah Lee, was directed by and starred John Ireland as a frontier marshal who takes on a hired killer.
12. SECOND CHANCE (1953) Ex-boxer Robert Mitchum woos Linda Darnell while assassin Jack Palance hunts them down in Mexico. Directed by veteran Rudolph Matè.
13. INFERNO (1953) was a classy thriller with Rhonda Fleming leaving husband Robert Ryan for dead in the desert, not realizing what a stubborn guy he is about dying.
14. I, THE JURY (1953) almost ruined the reputation of Mickey Spillane's tough guy gumshoe Mike Hammer by casting a winky-dink named "Biff" Elliot in the role.
15. THE STRANGER WORE A GUN (1953) was a lively Randolph Scott western with future stars Lee Marvin and Ernest Borgnine in support.
16. DEVIL'S CANYON (1953) was a pretty good picture with an unusual setting: A frontier prison. Starring Virginia Mayo, Dale Robertson.
17. WINGS OF THE HAWK (1953) is a neglected Budd Boetticher western with Van Heflin helping block an overthrow of Mexico.
18. THE MOONLIGHTER (1953) was a western starring Fred MacMurray and Barbara Stanwyck in her pre-"Big Valley" days. Watch for Jack Elam being dragged behind a horse in 3-D.
19. THOSE REDHEADS FROM SEATTLE (1953) was an attempt to make movie stars out of pre-Elvis 1950s pop singers Guy Mitchell ("Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania"), Teresa Brewer ("Music, Music, Music") and The Bell Sisters ("Down in Bermuda"). It didn't work.
20. FLIGHT TO TANGIER (1953) starred Joan Fontaine and Jack Palance in a thriller about the race to recover a treasure aboard a downed aircraft.
21. THE GLASS WEB (1953) was a nice little thriller starring Edward G. Robinson, set in the environment of a TV mystery show.
22. KISS ME, KATE (1953) was MGM's big-budget Cole Porter musical based on Shakespeare's "Taming of the Shrew." Yes, that's Broadway's legendary Bob Fosse in the "From This Moment On" number with Carol Haney.
23. GUN FURY (1953) was a western by veteran
director Raoul Walsh, starring Rock Hudson as a he-man trying
to recover kidnapped Donna Reed. No comment.
24. THE NEBRASKAN (1953) was a routine western starring unlikely
hero Phil Carey while future screen hero Lee Van Cleef lurked
in the background.
25. LOUISIANA TERRITORY (1953) was one of the worst films of the 3-D era, an amateurish travelog about Louisiana with some historical nonsense about the Louisiana Purchase.
26. HONDO (1953) is the classic John Wayne western, based on Louis L'Amour's short story, "The Gift of Cochise," about a drifter who helps defend a widowed frontierwoman and her child against the Indians surrounding them.
27. CEASE FIRE (1953) is one of the most interesting, but little known films of the era -- a Korean War film starring real-life Korean war veterans.
28. MISS SADIE THOMPSON (1953) was Curtis Bernhardt's vigorous remake of W. Somerset Maugham's "Rain," starring Rita Hayworth as the fallen woman of the islands.
29. CAT WOMEN OF THE MOON (1953) is one of the all-time high camp sci-fi movies, starring Sonny Tufts (Sonny Tufts???) as the lead spaceman who discovers a race of aging B-movie actresses living in caves on the moon, among them deliciously nasty Marie Windsor.
30. DRUMS OF TAHITI (1954) was William Castle's grade Z South Sea Islands movie, the one where they kept tossing tiki torches at the audience.
31. TAZA, SON OF COCHISE (1954) was the only western from revered director Douglas Sirk ("Written on the Wind"), starring Rock Hudson with a cameo by Jeff Chandler as Cochise.
32. CREATURE FROM THE BLACK LAGOON (1954) introduced the best new series monster of the 1950s -- The Gill Man, an underwater survivor from prehistoric times who really grooved on sexy Julia Adams, like all the rest of us guys.
33. MONEY FROM HOME (1954) was a Damon Runyan comedy starring Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis, then the nation's top comedy team.
34. THE FRENCH LINE (1954) was a dull shipboard comedy/musical that took full advantage of the fact the censors tried to ban poor old Jane Russell again for showing too much of her Junoesque bod.
35. PHANTOM OF THE RUE MORGUE (1954) brought another spin to Poe's "Murders in the Rue Morgue," this time with Karl Malden as a Mad Doctor sending his ape out to kill for him. Weirdest moments: All those starring Merv Griffin as the juvenile lead.
36. JESSE JAMES vs. THE DALTONS (1954) let William Castle come at us again in 3-D, this time with a loser cast of nobodies from the Hollywood welfare rolls.
37. DANGEROUS MISSION (1954) was a film
so boring that my Mom tried to buy a print to threaten me with
when I was bad. Everybody was embarrassed, especially stars Victor
Mature and Piper Laurie.
38. JIVARO (1954) was a dim-witted adventure set in the Amazon
with Fernando Lamas and Rhonda Fleming making their second and
third 3-D films respectively, without distinction.
39. THE MAD MAGICIAN (1954) turned Vincent Price loose on us again, this time with a buzzsaw that whirled right into the midst of us.
40. SOUTHWEST PASSAGE (1954) joined the milling crowd of routine 3-D westerns, this one starring John Ireland, Joanne Dru and Rod Cameron.
41. DIAL M FOR MURDER (1954) is the Alfred Hitchcock classic thriller many consider the best 3-D film ever made.
42. GORILLA AT LARGE (1954) stars a guy in a gorilla suit who kills people at an amusement park. With two future Oscar-winners -- Anne Bancroft and Lee Marvin, not to mention both Raymond Burr and Lee J. Cobb.
43. SON OF SINBAD (1954) was hardly seen by anyone, let alone in 3-D and SuperScope. Phony Arabian nights yarn starred Dale Robertson and featured Lilli St. Cyr, the strip teaser.
44. GOG (1954) illustrated the low grade
sci-fi films my generation had to put up with in the 1950s. It
was about a pair of menacing robots that resembled my Mom's Eureka
vacuum cleaner.
45. SILVER LODE (1954) was an attempt to echo the symbolic anti-McCarthyism
sentiment of the classic "High Noon" in a western with
John Payne and Dan Duryea as antagonists.
46. REVENGE OF THE CREATURE (1955) is generally considered the final film of the 3-D era, a sequel to "Creature From the Black Lagoon: with the Gill-Man surfacing in the U.S. Not as good as the original, but it does feature the screen debut of Clint Eastwood as a dippy lab technician who can't find a missing mouse. (Leading lady Lori Nelson doesn't say, "Is that a mouse in your pocket, Clint, or are you just glad to see me?)
(Several other full-length feature films were made in 3-D during this period, but all the rest were foreign films with scant showings in the U.S.)
© 2000 by Ron Miller
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