Dial M for Murder is a classic Alfred Hitchcock tale about deceit, murder, and plans that go awry. Margot Wendice (Grace Kelly) is the wealthy and beautiful wife of former tennis star, Tony Wendice (Ray Milland), but she is in love with American detective writer Mark Halliday (Robert Cummings). When Mark comes to London from New York, the couple is thrilled to see each other, but Margot has disturbing news. Some months back, her handbag was stolen and when she recovered it, the only thing missing was a love letter from Mark, the only one she kept and carried with her always. Even worse, she later received a blackmail letter, but even though she sent the money, it was never picked up. That leaves Margot, and now Mark, waiting for the other shoe to drop.

Meanwhile, Tony is well aware of their affair and realizes his rich wife is about to call the marriage quits, so he devises a plan. When Mark comes for his visit, Tony feigns a heavy workload, sending the lovebirds off to the theater without him. Then he arranges a meeting at his house with a former college schoolmate, Charles Swann (Anthony Dawson), under the pretense of buying his car, but really, he wants to blackmail him into murdering his wife, so he will naturally inherit all of her money before she has the chance to leave him. Tony has carefully planned everything out, but as these things go, something always goes wrong. Even though he and Mark will be attending a stag party and providing a well-established alibi, leaving Margot at home alone, she is able to thwart her own murder and kill her attacker in the process, forcing Tony to quickly improvise. If he can’t get rid of Margot in the way he planned, he can make it look like she intentionally killed Swann, sending her to the gallows. Will Tony’s perfect plans go down the drain when clever Chief Inspector Hubbard (John Williams) puts his own plan in motion?

Dial M for Murder has been remastered for Blu-ray and Blu-ray 3D and while it looks good, there are still some areas where things look pixel-y. I do not have a 3D setup, so I wasn’t able to view Dial M for Murder in all of its 3D glory, but this is still a very old film and the remastered 2D version looks great. Special features are slim, though, and consist of only the theatrical trailer and a documentary called Hitchcock and Dial M, which seems to have been shot around the same time as the featurettes I recently saw on Strangers on a Train, since Peter Bogdanovich, M. Night Shyamalan and Patricia Hitchcock take part in it. The featurette is definitely worth watching, but it’s only about 20 minutes.

Overall, if Dial M for Murder isn’t already in your collection and you are a mystery/thriller fan, this is the version to get.