Dial S for Super-Saturated!

We just watched Dial M for Murder, a second-tier Hitchcock film that's still right up there with Vertigo and Rear Window in terms of its use of Big 50s Color. It was originally shot for 3-D because it was all the rage, but was seldom projected that way.

Jon once told me that I "don't know how movies work" because I'm often so distracted by some element of production design that I completely fail to follow the plot of the movie. I did fixate on this one celadon lamp that I'm pretty sure was mainly there as a foil to Grace Kelly's explosively red dinner dress. Fortunately the characters explain the basic plot in advance and revisit all the important points as it progresses, so I could still follow along.




Even the beiges are rich and buttery. Also entertaining for a scene in which Grace Kelly sports the "no makeup look" and utterly fails to look frowsy and downtrodden.