Directed by Alfred Hitchcock
My rating: 3 stars out of 4
IMDb
(Blu-ray 3D, Warner Bros.)
Hitchcock's screen adaptation of Frederick Knott's play feels stagy: most of the story takes place in a cramped apartment. Ray Milland is a husband planning the perfect murder of his wife, after he discovers her affair with an American mystery writer. He blackmails a forgotten college friend into carrying out the actual murder, while he takes care of the miniscule details to throw off the police after the fact. When the murder goes wrong, he must think quickly to outwit a Scotland Yard inspector and frame his wife. A couple of things bothered me. First, the "old college buddy" was too fast to agree to his murder for hire scheme. Some background on his character would have made it more believable. And about that key... perhaps Londoners in the early 1950s carried around a bare key with no key chain, and the inspector notes at one point that "they all look alike", but it still seemed like too much of a coincidence, especially for such a crucial plot point. Of course, the fun in a film like this is looking for cracks in the story. The 3D makes use of objects in the foreground around the apartment for depth, and is put to excellent use during the murder scene, but really is just as good in 2D.
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