Every day, AlloCiné recommends a film to (re)watch on TV. Tonight: Michael Douglas wants to kill his wife.
In 1954, Alfred Hitchcock brought Frederick Knott’s play to the screen, “Dial M for Murder”, which had a major hit on Broadway two years earlier. With The crime was almost perfect, he achieves one of his classics. Respecting the unity of place of the original work, the filmmaker signs a camera in which Tony Wendice (Ray Milland), a former tennis champion, hatches a plan to murder his wife Margot (Grace Kelly), who cheats on him with detective novelist Mark Halliday (Robert Cummings).
In 1998, Andrew Davis (The Fugitive, Pursuit) embarked on a remake, renamed Perfect Murder. The plot is therefore similar – a businessman on the verge of bankruptcy discovers that his wife is cheating on him with a painter and develops a Machiavellian plan to force the lover to kill his wife – but the setting changes. The Hitchcockian heroes’ London apartment is transformed into a luxurious New York building with a view of Central Park. In addition, the staging is aerial, favoring movements and geographical displacements.
If Perfect Murder also benefits from a convincing cast, starting with Michael Douglas in a role similar to that he plays in Wall Street, alongside Gwyneth Paltrow and Viggo Mortensen, it is however far from equaling the film of Hitchcock. As proof, the average audience rating AlloCiné du Crime was almost perfect at 4.3 out of 5, while that of Perfect Murder reached 2.8 out of 5.
Perfect Murder by Andrew Davis with Michael Douglas, Gwyneth Paltrow, Viggo Mortensen…
From 10 years old
Tonight on 6ter at 9:05 p.m.