The screenplay of the movie DIAL M FOR MURDER was written by Frederick Knott, who based it on his own television play. On 23 March 1952, it was broadcast on British television by the BBC. The stage version was also performed that same year, in theatres in London's West End and on Broadway in New York, among other places.
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| Dial M for Murder, 0:43:34 |
Thanks to the play's worldwide success, Warner Bros. bought the rights and asked Alfred Hitchcock to direct. The story is about Tony Wendice (Ray Milland), a former tennis player who wants to murder his wife Margot (Grace Kelly) because of her wealth. He knows that she is having an affair with mystery writer Mark Halliday (Robert Cummings) and wants to divorce him. To avoid suspicion, he hires Charles Swann (Anthony Dawson) to commit the murder while he is attending a party.
He arranges to call his home to distract Margot and give Swann the opportunity to strangle her. However, things do not go as Tony had planned...
The original story is set entirely in a living room in London. For the film script Frederick Knott added a few short scenes that take place outside the house, including the party Tony visits and a police officer at the police station. During the trial, only the faces of Margot and the judge are shown. All scenes were filmed at Warner Bros. Studios in Burbank.
The street where Tony and Margot live is shown a few times, for which a second camera united filmed in London. In the film, Tony says his address is 61A Charrington Gardens. This street, which is supposed to be located in residential district Maida Vale (hence the letter M in the movie’s title), does not exist. Apparently, for years it was unclear which street had been used for filming. The address is not mentioned in the Warner archives either. According to the website
The MacGuffin, Australian Hitchcock fan Geoff Keane discovered with the help of Google Street View that it was Collingham Road. Tony and Margot live at number 13. The house has been blurred on
Google Street View.
Collingham Road is first seen at the beginning of the film when a police officer walks down the street. The houses across the street have hardly changed. The building on the far left is now partially obscured by a tree.
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| Dial M for Murder, 0:01:14 |
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| Collingham Road, London, 4 May 2025 |
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| Dial M for Murder, 1:13:10 |
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| Collingham Road, London, 4 May 2025 |
Later in the film, Inspector Hubbard (John Williams) is in the house and watches Margot walk to the front door. Grace Kelly was not in London, she was filmed in front of a projection screen.
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| Dial M for Murder, 1:32:30 |
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| Collingham Road, London, 4 May 2025 |
Mark Halliday arrives in Collingham Road by taxi. Through the windscreen of the taxi, he sees Tony going inside. When I compared the screenshot with the photo, I saw that it is not the same location. This must be a studio set, and because of the similarities, I suspect that it was built especially for this film.
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| Dial M for Murder, 1:13:15 |
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| Collingham Road 13, London, 4 May 2025 |
The website
Reel Streets initially stated that the scene in which Mark Halliday smokes a cigarette on the street is a set. The text has since been adjusted, as he too was standing in front of a projection screen. It is the corner of Collingham Road and Courtfield Gardens, and the house behind him is number 15. Unfortunately, I only read this after we returned from London, so there is no photo of the street as it appears today.
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| Dial M for Murder, 1:30:27 |
Alfred Hitchcock may have chosen this location himself. Between 1926 and 1939, he lived on Cromwell Road. This street can be seen in the background when the policeman walks down the street and when Margot comes home. It is a three-minute walk from 13 Collingham Road to 153 Cromwell Road. To the left of the window is a plaque commemorating the famous director.
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| Cromwell Road 153, London, 4 May 2025 |
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| Cromwell Road 153, London, 4 May 2025 |
At the beginning of the film, Margot reads in the newspaper that the Queen Mary has arrived in Southampton harbour. For a few seconds, two men are seen looking at the passenger ship, again in front of a projection screen. I have not been able to find where these scenes were filmed. However, I did find a 26-second stock video of the first scene on the
Getty Images website. Apart from Warner Bros. Studios and the year 1954, there is no reference to the film.
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| Dial M for Murder, 0:01:54 |
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| Dial M for Murder, 0:01:59 |
Screenshots © Warner Bros.
