Another Hitchcock movie! Following my tradition of including one on every Moviecation list.
This is one of those film titles I had heard tossed around, but obviously after seeing Psycho and Shadow of a Doubt in film classes and then Vertigo, North by Northwest, and Rear Window for Movie Bucketlists, this one was kind of a random choice.
The plot follows a married couple, Tony and Margot Mary Wendace (played by the incomparable Grace Kelly!). Margot is having an affair with a man named Mark Halliday, and Tony constructs an elaborate plot to kill his wife and inherit her wealth. It’s a kind of like a feminist Double Indemnity, since it’s the gold-digging man after his wife’s money? Okay maybe uxoricide and feminism shouldn’t be lumped together that way.
So basically since the perfect murder is possible only on paper (as the film posits), shenanigans ensue and Hitchcock works his suspenseful magic!
Only this time I don’t know if I was as impressed as I normally am. Instead of following a detective solving a case as it is unravels before the audience, we’re watching a detective solve a case we already know the answer to. Will he catch the culprit? Who knows! Do we care…? I’m not so sure.
Grace Kelly is fabulous as always (okay yes the only other movie I’ve seen her in is Rear Window). Like a true future Princess of Monaco. Fun fact, Prince Rainier had to produce an heir or the Principality of Monaco would revert back to France! It was a real Princess Diaries 2 situation! He ended up having two daughters and a son with Grace Kelly, and the son, Prince Albert II, is the current ruler of Monaco and one of the richest rulers in the world with a value of $1 billion.
Anyway the film was interestingly enough shot using 3-D cameras, but was screened in 2-D because interest in 3-D film came and went in just an instant in the early 1950s. The film is also based on a BBC play, and the detective is the same actor from the Broadway run.
The film is currently #163 on the IMDb Top 250 and has an 88% on Rotten Tomatoes.
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