Dial M for Murder / 1792 Full Proof (ft. Daniel Joyaux)

0:00 In 1954, director Alfred Hitchcock and star Grace Kelly gave the world an ingenious crime thriller that kept you at the edge of your seat till the final second in. 2023 We finish out a flight of up and down bourbons. The film is Dial M for Murder. The whiskey is 1792 foolproof, and we'll review them both. This is the. Film and Whiskey Podcast. Welcome to the Film and Whiskey Podcast, where each week we review a classic movie and a glass of whiskey. I'm Bob.

0:51 Book. I'm Brad G. And this week we are finishing up Season 7. Brad wrapping it up, baby. Man, it's been a long season, hasn't it? Yeah, it's interesting. I've really enjoyed these two seasons of, you know, director miniseries. But it feels like it kind of drags certain segments of the season along, right? Like there's a certain director that you're not quite as hot on, like Kurosawa. It felt like it took a while. Hitchcock felt like he's gone on for a while. It's really just the ones that you pick 5 movies for Bob. Well, you know, I it's I pick 5 movies for the ones that are like universally beloved as the best directors ever.

1:31 And I'm like, surely these five films will go over great with Brad and then they never do. So yeah, I mean that's, I would say that I I stand with the common man. We'll say that for now, but we're finishing out season seven with Dial M for Murder. A film that you know, I believe Bosley Crowder referred to back in the day as an absolute banger, Brad, that is the, you know, hoity toity description of this film because that's what it is, man. Like it works so well. Bosley Crowther sounds like a stage name for John Cleese in Monty Python. He was. He's not a real he. Was not a real name. Famous movie critic for probably 30 years, Brad. No, that's Roger Ebert, Bob.

2:16 Before him, Prior to Ebert? Really. Yeah, I've never heard of him. I. We should clearly be about him. Osley Crowther was the film critic for like the 40s, fifties and 60s, and he walked Bob in the aftermath of giving Bonnie and Clyde a scathing review. Bonnie and Clyde. Oh, Yep. Yep. How dare he? I know. They basically said get out of here, old man. And then the new film criticism was born. Pauline Kael was waiting in the wings. She was like, now's my time. All right, man, let's stop talking about film criticism for now and let's actually do some film criticism. And that voice you're hearing in the back is a film critic friend of ours who's joining us for, I believe, the third time.

3:00 It's Daniel Zwyo. Daniel, how you doing tonight, man? I'm. Good. How are you guys? Doing great. I'm excited to talk Hitchcock. I was going to say we're doing incredible, man. We've watched now five Hitchcock films. I'm trying to think back through all five of them. Bob, I feel like I was pretty high on two, at least two, maybe three. I I can't even remember what movies we watched. So let's see. I thought you would be really high last week on the 39 Steps and you were not. We did rope. That's one of my favourites. You were going to be met. Like rope. Yeah, yeah. What else? What else did we do?

3:40 Oh Notorious. We were both not huge fans of Notorious. Notorious. Yeah. So it's been up and down on Hitchcock. Truly, Here's the Here's the deal, though. Dial M for murder is Dial A for Awesome. Well, I think maybe we should talk a little bit about why that is, because we've said it multiple Times Now. But I think the most important thing that I need to illustrate to the film and Whiskey listener right now is. I am joined today by two people who watched this film for the first time. I'm absolutely shocked to hear that Daniel had not seen this movie before. Brad, it's like a given. But Daniel I was. I was shocked.

4:21 Join me in my shame, Daniel. Fill us in a little bit, man. Like what? What? What made this? BE I'm a bad Hitchcock viewer because I've seen Vertigo and Psycho and North by Northwest and Rear Window and N Notorious all half a dozen times each, but I haven't done a deep dive on his filmography. I mean, I feel like if you go 5 films deep, you're doing pretty good. But like, you know, Brad and I had already done the four major ones. And so we're coming back here with Movies 5 through 9 right now just to kind of round things out a little bit. Well, I have the famous Hitchcock Trefo book and Trefo said in his introduction, Alfred Hitchcock made 53 films and one daughter. So but 53 films?

5:01 I feel like I've got to go more than more than the 10 deep I have. That's a heck of a quote. All right, guys, let's dive into talking about the movie itself a little bit. And to do that, we need to throw over to our first segment of the day, which we call, Brad Explains. Brad's going to give us the movie plots with only 60 seconds ticking on the clock, so let's go ahead and hear your take with this little segment that we call. Brad explains. Brad Explains is the part of the podcast where Brad breaks down the plot of the film that he has just seen, often for the first time. We've established this. It is Brad's first time with Dial M for Murder. Brad, I am so excited to hear you talk about this movie because I feel like it's kind of a spoiler proof film.

5:45 Like there's not too much you can tip your hand with here that Hitchcock doesn't give you in the 1st 10 minutes of the movie. I'm trying to think what would I mean. The spoilers would be like what happens at the end of the film. That's that's true as as most spoilers. But it's not really a mystery. Like who did it? You know? Yeah, yeah, no, it I I think that's what I love about Hitchcock in general is that he often doesn't really care who done it. He really is interested in how done it and and like is and and essentially the question he always asks is will the person get caught like that seems to be the driving tension in a lot of his films and I think he does it probably the best.

6:30 Not quite the best, but one of the best ways that he's ever done it. I think he does here in Dial in for Murder. All right, Brad. Well, you have 60 seconds on the clock to break down the plot of this movie, spoil the whole thing, and go dial in. For Murder is a film about a former tennis pro named Tony Wendis who does not like the fact that his wife is cheating on him. He gets in contact with an old college buddy who spent some time in jail, convinces him to take on a job for £1000 to murder his wife. The job goes a a bit awry when his wife escapes the murder and kills his college associate. The rest of the film is about Tony Wendis trying to find his way out of getting out of justice and pinning the murder on his wife.

7:22 The Chief Inspector spends the the rest of the film following his way through all the clues and eventually nabbing Tony Wendis for the murder. Boom. Well, not really for the murder, for the set up, for the. For the attempt, yeah, for the attempt. For the attempt. Good, good try. All right. Man, I think it's time that we dive into the film itself. And Brad, I don't know how much farther we can get talking about this. Without comparing it to Rope, which we just watched a couple weeks ago, I think Rope is probably the closest thing in Hitchcock's catalogue that I've seen to this. Especially in that, like the entire premise of the film is you're following the bad guy all the way through the movie.

8:07 Hitchcock is trying to, in some ways, make you complicit in what the bad guys doing. So that you're the suspense is whether or not this truly evil person will get caught doing what he's doing. And not only that, but they give you all the information you need about those characters in the first, you know, 10-15 minutes of the movie. So it really does follow a similar path to rope. Not to mention they're both adapted from stage plays. And I think you can kind of tell with both of them that they have this very confined theatrical kind of feel to them. Can I? I, I think I can actually compare and contrast rope and dial M for murder in three words. Bob, are you Are you ready?

8:52 This could go a lot of ways. Yeah, I'm ready, Rope, but better. Oh, I don't know about that, Man. I loved rope. Rope. Also also rope. 85 minutes long. That is true. I mean, this was only, oh, what, an hour and 45 minutes. Yeah, it's only like, you know, 20 minutes longer. 105 minutes, Bob. But when you've done it economically, why? Why drag it out? You know, Daniel, this was your first time through the film, just like myself. So where are you sitting at, you know, at the end of your first viewing? Are there are there any, like big performances you want to point out? Anything that just resonated with your soul?

9:35 Where are you at? I really liked it. I think the only reason I can think of that it wouldn't be considered one of Hitchcock's best is that I is it the opening conversation the main character has with the man he's contracting to kill his wife? I think that conversation drags too long. That's like a like a 10 to 15 minute long scene right at the opening of the movie. It means you don't get into it as fast as you otherwise would, but probably from the minute that scene ends at like the 20 minute mark, the rest of the movie is just completely intense and you're totally in it the whole time. Well, and I'll say too, I think even towards the back part of that conversation, when it becomes clear how meticulous he's been in his planning, it all kind of makes sense.

10:23 Because he even has like a another phone call before that where he's calling like his boss or his maid or somebody to kind of help set up his own alibi and you don't realize that's what he's doing until he reveals it 15 minutes later. And yeah, you're right, man, the 1st 10 minutes of this movie excruciatingly slow. Like, I I'm not typically the guy that pulls out my phone and checks my e-mail or whatever. And you know, I've seen this movie before, so I know where it's going. But. The 1st 10 minutes of the movie felt completely aimless until he gets his friend into the apartment and slowly starts to reveal I know all about you, I know you're a con man, you're gonna murder my wife, and here's why. And here's all the things that I've done to clear my own name.

11:06 And it's a really brilliant web that he weaves. And that's really, really great writing too. But again, it's like you have to have that kind of really long stretched out introduction to give you that pay off. But I think it's really high risk, high reward, Brad. Just like the murder he commits. Yeah, I I'm with you guys. The opening scene before the accomplices brought into the apartment where Grace Kelly is like making out with her American lover and it it was just confusing for a little while I I wasn't quite sure what was going on. And then the, you know, Tony comes in and, you know, gets rid of his wife and then he gets his friend to come over and I'm like, what in the world is happening?

11:52 And like you guys said, as soon as he makes it clear without saying it, I'm going to ask you to murder my wife. From that moment till the end of the film, I am at the edge of my seat. So as long as we're all in agreement, we can put away the 1st 12, you know, 16 minutes of this film and just talk about the rest of it now, because the rest of it is incredible. Yeah. And something I really want to stress is I think it's the third scene in the movie where after he's so the main character's name is Tony. After Tony has, you know, told his friend the plot, now it's getting ready to be put into action. And what it depends on is Tony and Mark going out to a club for the evening while Margot, played by Grace Kelly, stays at home. And right as they're getting ready to leave, Margot is saying, oh, she'll go out and go to the movie too. And that moment is so intense as you watch Tony's face drop in, trying to figure out anything he can do to get Margot to stay in the apartment.

12:54 He keeps offering her suggestions about, oh, what about this thing you meant to do and this thing you meant to do? And the Hitchcock moves the camera around the room as you watch sort of each object Tony brings up as an idea to get her to stay. And the placement of the keys. And Oh no, someone's standing in the wrong place for a key to be put there. And now they're scissors. And that whole scene is just so dynamically staged and the moment where he gaslights her and just it completely is like, well, you know, I'm, I'm not going to go out if if you don't want me to go out, you clearly don't want me to go and and I'm just like, oh snap, bro. It's great. It's just it's really great. So well written and Ray, I'm guessing Miland. Miland is that it?

13:35 Miland. Ray Miland is terrifying in this movie. He he plays everybody else in the film like a freaking fiddle. Like from that scene to the way he interacts with the police. I He just does a masterful job here. Well, that was what I was going to say. We can't go any further in this conversation without talking about Ray Meland and the the note that I took on his performance. Brad is just this is one of the all time great Hitchcock performances. You know, Hitchcock initially wanted Cary Grant for this role. Warner Brothers said they didn't buy him as a villain, which is really funny because I mentioned a couple weeks ago, this is the same thing that Hitchcock went through in the early 40s with the movie Suspicion and also with Notorious, like they're playing on that a little bit in the early going. So they wouldn't do Cary Grant.

14:21 They hired Ray Meland instead. We have never done a Ray Meland movie on this podcast. When we were doing our Billy Wilder series. Brad, I told you about a movie Wilder made called The Lost Weekend. And Ray Meland is the star of that movie. He won an Oscar for it. He's a great actor and I feel like he's kind of become lost to time a little bit because especially in the last half of his career and he was just taking whatever paycheck he could. He was making a lot of like really low budget schlocky horror movies. But when you go back and watch some of his great performances, I mean he knocks it out of the park in this movie. And I don't know that I've ever seen him in anything. IMDb says. He was in Battlestar Galactic, which I was I saw once as a kid.

15:03 Beyond that, I'm not sure if I've ever seen him before. And I know he won Best Actor for the last weekend, which I've never seen. I was going to say I I was looking through his filmography and I saw The Sea Serpent in the 80s, which has a 3.6 on IMDb Classic film. We'll be reviewing that next season. I was going to say, is that your let's make it a double pick for today, Obviously. I think what makes him so menacing and so terrifying is not the moments where he has everything planned out like like those established that there's a level of genius here that you wouldn't necessarily expect from a former, you know, tennis star. It's the moments where things go wrong, and he almost always has the perfect on the spot ad libbed answer to to twist things his way.

15:56 I think that's what makes him such a terrifying villain in this movie. I totally agree. And I was going to say more or less the same thing, that that they're probably four or five times the movie where one of the other characters will ask him a question that we as the audience know he doesn't have a good answer to, and then suddenly he just produced with a good answer. Yeah, I mean, he's, he's truly slippery. And I wouldn't call him slimy like some of the other villains we've had in this Hitchcock miniseries, Brad. But what is so great about Ray Mullan too, is that he's not Cary Grant. Like, in terms of his looks, he looks like a guy who does, you know, who can put on airs and pretend to be wealthy. But there's something that rings me just he's British. I I think that's a prerequisite of being British. There's something that rings just slightly false about it, like he can fool most people, but as the audience you're like he he's not quite fooling me and it's probably because he straight up told me he wants to kill his wife. But I I think being able to walk that line between, yes, he's dapper like Cary Grant, but there's an element to him that I don't trust and it's something about his look too. I think it's a really brilliant stroke of of casting here by Hitchcock, Yeah.

17:10 I mean he has that vibe of a former athlete who's let himself go just a little bit but still thinks that he controls the world around him. And and the way he goes about controlling the world through manipulation, through lies, through coercion just sets him up as like you said, Bob, I'd I'd say not just one of the greatest Hitchcock characters of all time, but like, I'd probably, I'd probably think about him on a like a top ten villain list. Oh yeah. It's A and it's such a meaty role for a villain too because you know from the get go that he is the villain. It's not some twist ending where you find out at the very last moment, Oh my gosh, he did try to kill his wife the whole time. It's like, no, we're going to lay it all out there and you are going to watch how slimy this guy can be and at the same time, it's not a whodunit.

18:02 It's it's a will. Will he get away with it? Will he done it? So I'm curious, do you guys know that this that there was a remake of this movie from the 90s? Yes. So this movie was remade first as ATV movie, as Dial M for Murder, and then as a theatrical movie in the late 90s called A Perfect Murder, starring Michael Douglas and Gwyneth Paltrow and Viggo Mortensen. And it is currently streaming on. Tubi and your boy tried to get the whole thing washed before we press record and I got only halfway through. It's not bad. And it's directed by the guy that made The Fugitive. Like, it's a pretty good movie. It's also the Made Under Siege.

18:42 Yes, right. That's what we need. Is Segal in in this movie? That's what it's missing. I saw A Perfect Murder in theaters in 1997, and I remember really liking, and that was before I even, you know, knew much about Hitchcock. But I haven't seen it again since then, so I don't know if it holds up. I I feel like there's a there's a great analogue for this. Bob. You and I watched Charade a few seasons ago, one of my favorite movies all, all time. There's like a 2002 or Three remake called. The Truth about Charlie and Charlie and Charlie's No Tandy. Tandy Newton. Yep, Yep.

19:23 Plays, plays the the female lead and and once again it's like one of those movies I saw when I was young, I was like oh, I really like that. But I'm sure if I went back now, it might not hold up as well. There was a whole sub genre of movies in the late 90s and early 2000s where it was like let's make a 6.5 out of 10 version of a movie that was really good. Like they did it with The Thomas Crown Affair. They did it with this movie The Italian Job. Like it's it's just it's one of my favorite sub genres because the remakes are fine. You know what I mean, But that's about all they are. But about it? But I will say, here's my scorching hot take for the day and I'm going to set myself up for you guys to attack me on this. Gwyneth Paltrow plays the Grace Kelly role in the remake, and I like Grace Kelly a lot.

20:13 What I've been struck by in her Hitchcock movies is that I don't think he gives her that much to do. And I kind of preferred the Gwyneth Paltrow role in the new version to the Grace Kelly role. Did she try to sell you some goop products? No, I was not offered goop at any point. I was thinking about that watching the movie is that, you know, so Grace Kelly's a star of both this and Rear Window, which are both movies that essentially just take place in one apartment. And so there's there's, like you said, there's less for her to do. It's a little different in her third Hitchcock movie, To Catch a Thief, which is in the French Riviera. And you know, she can be more like Grace Kelly. But I agree that this dialogue for Murder didn't necessarily need Grace Kelly to be the star.

20:58 Yeah, and that. And that's the hard part, right? Like Grace Kelly brings so much to the table and like you said, Bob, her character, the the script just doesn't ask a ton from her. I I do think that by the end of the film, the descent from this bright vivacious. Adulterous woman who's like ready to leave her husband to this, like grief stricken prison, like stupor that comes over her. I think it's a really good arc and I think it kind of cements the fact that this this isn't a happy ending. Like at the end of the film, who's who's smiling and pouring a glass of Brandy, right?

21:40 Like this isn't a happy ending even though. You know, justice is served, and I think that's a fascinating piece of this film. And you see that in in Grace Kelly's character. Something that fascinates me about Grace Kelly's character in the film is one of the major Hitchcock tropes we think of is, you know, we think of Mcguffin's, we think of the icy blondes, and we think of the wrong man accused for things. And what's fascinating about Dial M for murder is it's not a wrong man accused for things, but a wrong woman accused for things. And I haven't gone deep enough into Hitchcock's filmography to know whether that's unique to this film or whether he did explored that before. This is at least the first time I've ever encountered him doing a film where the wrong woman is accused of something as opposed to the wrong man.

22:23 I think that's a great point, and I think that's why, for me at least, this is the best of the three. Hitchcock, Grace Kelly performance. As we've seen Brad, she doesn't get a lot to do. But in the moments where she is really and truly breaking down at the emotional distress that the situation is causing, I think she really does a great job portraying a woman who feels trapped, who feels confused, and who doesn't know who's in her corner and who's not. Yeah. And she continually comes back to her husband on this belief that he has changed, right. Like that. Like that's one of the plot points She was going to leave him, but then he quits tennis to take care of her. And now? She is is kind of like Pam.

23:05 When she's trying to figure out if she wants to be with Roy or with Jim, she's like, I don't know who I actually want to be with because the guy I'm with is treating me better than he used to. And the guy that I want to be with lives in America. And so she she plays that so incredibly well throughout the film because she keeps coming back to Tony and she keeps believing the stories that he tells and I and I think that that gives a lot of depth to her character. As she as she slowly figures out the truth, I want to talk a little bit about the other two big roles in the movie. And then before we go to break, talk a little bit about the way the movie is structured. So the two remaining characters, I guess that I would point out would be the Chief Inspector, played by John Williams and Grace Kelly's lover, Mark, who's played by Robert Cummings.

23:53 I think that I guess let's start with Robert Cummings. I found him really, really charming in this movie. I thought that he his reactions to things he's constantly like, you can see the wheels in his head turning, and he plays an author of mystery novels or like detective novels. And so he's he's constantly inventing scenarios to try to figure out what happened with this failed murder attempt that Grace Kelly then ends up getting blamed for. They think that she basically, you know, murdered this guy on purpose. And there's a big convoluted reason why. But she spends most of the second-half of the movie in prison, and you don't see her. And so Robert Cummings keeps coming back to the apartment with the stories he's concocting to try to figure out what the timeline of events actually was. I do love the showdown that he has with Tony. I do love the fact that even, you know, every time Robert Cummings thinks he has Tony cornered, Tony still finds a way to outwit him all the way to the end of the movie. Brad, I'm wondering what you thought of this Robert Cummings performance.

24:57 I think that it's decent. I think he just doesn't have a lot to work with until like that one scene where he's going in on how Tony should should concoct this story just to save, you know, Margot's life and you know as he goes through it and you see Tony like trying to poke holes in it because it it's the story. It's not just the story, it's reality of what happened. I I love that interplay between Tony and Mark. But other than that, he just kind of plays eye candy throughout the film and he offers Tony the time when they're at the club and then that's about it. And I and I wanted more from him because that that one scene where we got him really engaged, I was, I was drawn in by. I really thought he was very charming. Brad, the senior talking about, had, I think, my favorite line in the film where Tony says killers don't work on credit. Oh, it's so good.

25:58 Dude, what a line. So good Daniel, what do you think of the performance here? I I agree with Brad. I think that Robert Cummings had the least to do in the film. Whereas John Williams is the Chief Inspector gets to end the film by combing his mustache, which is just a the ultimate class. Well, Speaking of John Cleese characters, I'm not entirely convinced that this isn't just John Cleese playing John Williams as the Chief. Thank you. Thank you so much. I was like, gay. I was like, oh, John Cleese. I was like, wait a second. I know John Cleese is older, but this doesn't make sense. There's no way he was this old in in like the mid 1950s. And I looked it up and I was like John Williams. And it clicked for me that he was in Bridge Over the River Kwai.

26:47 No, no, he wasn't. I'm looking at his filmography right now. Brad, we This is his third movie on our podcast, but not Bridge on the River Kwai. He was in. He was in Sabrina as Sabrina's dad. Oh, and he Yes, and he was in to catch a Thief. He played like the insurance agent salesman guy in To Catch a. Thief Oh yeah, that. That kept kind of going around helping him out. Yep. You would like to. You'd think that he would be in Bridge on the River Kwai because he is possibly the most British man to ever exist. Tell me he's not the perfect British officer in Bridge of the River. Oh my gosh, absolutely, John Cleese vibes.

27:29 There was a line he had where he was talking about doing his investigation that he had an idea for a lead that he thought he could drop and he said but but but but my blood was hot and it's it sounds almost like. John Cleese would be saying that as parody, but no, it's not parody. That's just who this British inspector is. I just watched A Fish Called Wanda for the first time last week and John Cleese plays a barrister in that movie and like it is the exact same character. So, you know, if you want to remake dial in for Murder Again, I I suppose you could tap John Cleese for this role. It is like a it is a hilariously over the top character. Like, I don't necessarily know that the performance is over the top, but it is such a hammy, you know, like it. It's almost like he's, he's a caricature of Poirot coming in with the mustache stuff and it's really well done. But there were parts of this character that felt out of place with the rest of the movie for me, if I'm being honest. False.

28:30 There's also a part where you know his explaining the the his findings to Tony. And, you know, you think Tony's gotten away with it and the inspector's about to leave, but the infector stops that. But there's just one other thing, and I got, you know, the Columbo vibe? Yep, Yep. And it was incredible. And I wanted him to be on screen every minute of this movie. Like, I really, really loved Ray Moland. I liked Grace Kelly. Robert Cummings had a great scene. I could not get enough John Williams in this movie, guys. Not enough like. Not enough mustache combing. I I think what it what it did for me was everything else was so serious and and almost just a little bit melodramatic the way everybody's going about it and I just felt like John Williams character brought just enough levity even though he's taking it just as seriously as everyone else. There was something about the performance that I I don't know if it lightened the load or or what, but it just. Kept me entertained the entire film. They kept it from being so dour that I, you know, I couldn't feel engaged and I I thought that he just like knitted the entire performance together or the entire film together for me. One of the things about the script itself that I love so much is that it serves all four of these characters because of the fact that it's really a tale of two halves. Like this movie has an intermission. It's an hour and 45 minute movie

30:01 with an intermission in the middle, which is awesome first of all. Yeah, I was going to say and it's also like a 12 second. Unlike Killers of the Flower Moon, which does not have an intermission and should listen, like, sometimes you have to pee at the 50 minute mark. And Hitchcock is aware of this, you know. But the reason that the intermission works so well is that this really is a movie that because of the way it's structured, you find out in the early going, this guy's going to try to murder his wife. And so it builds to this crescendo of the attempted murder which happens at, like the, you know, 354045 minute mark. When that falls apart and he has to kind of regroup, there's an intermission. And then the back half of the movie also builds to a crescendo, but it's a crescendo of the police and Grace Kelly's lover trying to figure out exactly what happened here. And so you get this kind of like, you know, it's it's two halves that you could kind of layer on top of each other and they follow like the exact same trajectory. But what that ends up doing is it gives Ray Meland and Grace Kelly a bunch of great moments in the first half and then the second-half.

31:08 It really is kind of dominated by the police chief and and Halladay as they try to figure things out. And so I feel like everyone kind of gets their chance to eat here and it works really, really well. Brad. Yeah, and and I I love the way the movie's structured there. There is, you know, the time jump between act one and act two that gives you something else to focus on and and like the entire subplot is like the same. Is he going to get caught? But just the change of scenery a little bit and and obviously there's no scenery change. It's still in the apartment. But the the change of who's doing the chasing, of who's controlling the narrative, I think it keeps the movie fresh and moving, so it doesn't feel like it's just 86 straight minutes of one guy pretending like he's better than everyone else.

32:00 I'll slightly disagree with you in the sense that I don't think the main gist is whether or not he'll get caught. I think the main gist is we know he's going to get caught and we as the audience are trying to figure out. How he's going to get caught. And Hitchcock is throwing us every step he goes through. And we're the detectives trying to figure out which is the wrong step and which is the one thing, the one detail he missed. Well, and there's also, like, there's you think that someone's got him cornered. So, like, as an audience member, like when Holiday starts piercing it together, I'm like, yes, yes, yes, yes. And even then the police chief was like, no, that couldn't be. And I'm like, no, you almost had it come back, come back. So you have this, you know, you're reliving every step of the crime as they go through it again.

32:44 And it's like, it's so infuriating to watch them almost get it, but it just continues to add to the suspense because it seems like this guy's going to get away with it every time they go down, You know, a different rabbit trail. And at the end of the day, there's moments where I kind of wanted him to get away with it. You know what, if anyone ever deserved to? My guy had some really like, truly great planning. Yeah, dude, playing incredibly well and I I think that's. I think that's the the difference as I think more about rope, the mains. You know the main two students who kill their fellow student. They just the the youthfulness and the eagerness just is a little just like nails on a chalkboard.

33:32 For me, there's something about the older. Like self assuredness. I don't have to prove myself to anyone. I'm just doing this that feels a lot more dastardly and and villainous and and I don't know that that type of a villain draws me in so much more well. And I think what makes the villain role work so well too, is the extent to which he is cool and calm and collected and detached. Because, you know, it's understandable that, you know, he finds out his wife is cheating on him, like for an extended period of time, she's having this long standing affair. And so you can understand the impulse of a guy to say, like, I want to kill them, right? But then to see the extent to which she has mapped this entire thing out, and how he's been so patiently waiting for it, and the complete lack of emotion that's tied to it. It's really hard to make someone seem like the clear face of evil when they're paired up against someone who's also doing a wrong act, which is Grace Kelly.

34:39 And yet, this guy is so sociopathic that you are immediately back on Grace Kelly's side, which is a really hard thing to do, especially in a movie from the 1950s where you can't really show people engaging in an extramarital affair, Like, I feel like. People were already turned against Grace Kelly, and it took someone as evil as this to turn them back toward her. Yeah, no, I agree. He seems so dispassionate about it, Like you never get the vibe that he's out for revenge, that it's very much a financial proposition for him. Yeah, but but it's also like, you know, he's he's certainly opportunistic, like he's using the affair as the perfect timing to pull it off.

35:21 But you can tell how little he truly cares about it. It's not as if he's acting out of some place of woundedness. And I think that's what helps, right? And that's what helps kind of reframe the whole thing. Because, you know, while what Grace Kelly is doing is wrong, there's at least emotion and passion tied up in that whole affair. And then you see this guy who just has ice in his veins and would be at home in a David Fincher movie and it it makes a whole lot more sense. All right guys, I think we are in a good place to hit pause here. Brad and I are going to sneak off and drink some barrel proof whiskey. We're going to come back and continue talking about Dial M for murder. Brad, what do you say we get to this 1792 Foolproof? After last week's 1792, I'm cautiously excited for this one, Bob.

36:12 OK, so today we are rounding out Season 7 on the whiskey side of things with the last sample in our 5 sample flight of 1792. This is 1792. Foolproof Brad I am. I'm not going to lie, I'm a big fan of this whiskey. I've got a bottle of it on my shelf. I'm not drinking from that bottle. I am drinking from a sample that we are sharing that was sent to us by our friends, bourbon and stuff on Instagram. Bourbon and stuff. You're like, really getting into the singing the jingles today, man. Yeah, I'm all about it. I like it. It's a good time. This one we really need is musical numbers introduced into film and whiskey. Like in addition to the other jingles we already have like just I was going to say. You always know that you're getting into the later seasons of a television show.

37:00 When they have their musical episode, that's like a sure sign that the quality of the show is going downhill. Wow. What are you implying here, man? I I'm just saying the the writers for the film and Whiskey podcast. I feel like we're on our third set at this point. They're on strike right now, yeah. They're on strike right now. We we got a few scabs. It's not looking good, not looking good for us, man, but it is kind of looking good for 1792. We had a a slight upturn last week with the single Barrel and I'm hoping that we can kind of carry that goodwill into the full proof. Now this is bottled at 125 proof, that's why it's not called barrel proof because the proof does not fluctuate.

37:41 So it is. It could be barrel proof, but they regulate the proof to 125. Which I think is a good idea. Like I I'm all about barrel proof. But there is that essence of irregularity when you're getting a bottle that you know, one's at 128 and 121 and 135 and there is something kind of nice about saying, hey, these are all our high proof offerings. But we're going to just barely take the rough edge off and bring it down to 125 no matter what. Now I believe in this instance the reason they call it foolproof is because the legal limit of what bourbon can be when it goes into the barrel is 125 and so they they're essentially saying this is like entry proof level, but they call it foolproof.

38:27 It's non age stated apparently. At one time. There was a press release that came out back in like 2016 when this was first released and it said 8.5 years. But they don't put it on the bottle. So I'm guessing this is at least you know, 6-7 eight years old. I don't know how old the youngest in the blend is. It appears to be a 75% corn, 15% rye, 10% malted barley mashbill. Let's dive in. Brad, what are you picking up on the nose here? This is a a really pleasant nose. I got toffee vanilla. There's some orange Creamsicle creaminess going on. And I I got kind of the the scent of like freshly watered coffee grounds. Like like right after the water has gone through them, I have the same note, Brad.

39:13 I have coffee grounds. Not just coffee coffee grounds are is in my notes. Wow, look at us. I know. Yeah, I I think it's a solid, pleasant nose. I'll give it a 7 1/2 here. Yeah, I'm going to do about the same here. The ethanol is very prominent on the nose, and it definitely tips more into the oaky and kind of dark side of things. It reminds me a lot of some Buffalo Trace products. You know, we have that that signature oakiness here, and it's a little bit more like a toasted oak than even a charred oak. I get a lot of coffee grounds. I get quite a bit of chocolate on this as well, but it's not syrupy sweet as we've come to expect with some well aged bourbons. I like it. I'm a little worried that it's not necessarily going to hit my palate exactly how I want it to today, so I'm going to give it a 7.5 here. Yeah, and when I get into the palate, I think that this turns into this rich, delectable whiskey that I was not expecting.

40:10 I got caramel cheesecake. There's dark chocolate notes galore and it it really reminded me of like a really nice kind of fruity light roast coffee. There is a lot of really beautiful things happening here easily, like far and away. The best 1792 I've had like, like by an order of magnitude. So I'll, I'll give it a nine out of 10 here on the pallet. One of my favorite things to try to explain when when you and I are talking is like mapping out how the flavour spread across my tongue. And this is an interesting one. This is like the the Oppenheimer Trinity test of flavor explosions. It's like.

40:53 It. Literally nothing happened on the tip of my tongue. It got to the mid palate and then detonated and then spread in all directions like immediately and the ethanol again. I think this is one of the more aggressive, foolproof whiskeys that are out there on the market. Like it's it's really, really good, but it is incredibly prickly on the tongue. The ethanol makes itself known. I wouldn't really call this a spicy whiskey. I would call it prickly. I think you understand what I'm trying to say there, what with what it does on your palate. But I'm with you, man. There's a lot of sweetness here. For me, it was much more fruity than expected. I got some Peach notes on this that I really wasn't expecting. I like it a lot. I'm going to give it a second sip and maybe my score will come up on finish, but right now I'm just sticking at an 8 out of 10. So when I when I got to the finish it, it came down a little bit from the the highs of the pallet. I think it got into a really dark territory there. There's coffee beans, there's dark chocolate and for for me it really stuck in that range of like a really nice vanilla Porter there.

41:57 There's just so much really nice dark flavors going on here, along with some, you know, classic oakiness that you get on the finish. I'm going to give it an 8 1/2 here, Bob. Man, I don't know if I've ever been more in agreement with your tasting notes. Like a Porter or a stout is a great comparison on this. There's a ton of coffee bean on this. It gets a little bit creamier for me on this second sip. The ethanol once again is very prominent on the palate. On the finish though, not so much like. I feel like It kind of like fizzles out a little bit in terms of how much of A punch it packs. It leaves a really nice finish behind, a little bit of herbal, almost vegetal kind of notes. And it warms your chest on the way down. But I wouldn't call it super aggressive, so I actually like the finish probably better than I like the taste. I'm still going to stick in an 8 out of 10 here. And I think when you get to balance, I don't know about you Bob, but for me, this is a really spectacular amount of complexity and flavor going on here that I wasn't necessarily expecting at the nose.

42:59 I'm I'm not going to give it like a perfect score because it definitely ramps up, but I am going to give it a nine out of 10 on balance. I think they did something really interesting here. I'm. Going to come down a little bit and once again, I'm going to add the caveat that this sample of whiskey has been sitting on our shelf for like 2 years now. So it's probably, you know, it's probably gotten a little bit oxidized at this point. I really prefer the bottle of this that I have on my shelf, but I'm not going to score it based on that. I want to score on exactly what we're drinking. It gets a little bit bitter towards the very, very end of it. And I would say that the beginning, like the nose of it, didn't indicate exactly what kind of flavors it was actually going to have on the palate.

43:40 So it was a little bit of a each. Each part of the journey was a surprise, but it wasn't super consistent for me. So I'm just going to give it a 7.5 here and you are. I feel like you're coming in on pretty harsh for this one. No, I think it's because for the last four weeks I've been saying like wait till we get to foolproof. Wait till we get to foolproof. I like let it be known I love 1792 Foolproof. I will once again say I think that we probably should have gotten to these samples a little quicker than we did. And I am very excited to bring my bottle down to your house next time we hang out because I think it's is significantly better than what we just poured here.

44:20 Yeah, I'm excited to try it. I I I think that when we get to the value category, I'm curious to hear your score because I'm seeing that you can get this online in general for about $70. Yeah, Brad, the MSRP on this in the state of Ohio at least it sells for $46 and I believe that it is now allocated and you may may or may not have to enter a lottery to get it. I remember buying a bottle of this like straight off the shelf about a year ago in Ohio, and I paid about 45 bucks. I imagine that that $70.00 markup is for areas where it is a little more allocated or less seen, and so you're paying the $70.00 just to secure your bottle of it.

45:02 I don't know that $70.00 is necessarily the price point we need to score this on. I think maybe let's split the difference here and say, I don't know, 5558. Sure. Yeah. Yeah. Let's say, let's say 5560 bucks. I think at that price point, I'm going to give it an 8 out of 10. I think that's a pretty good value for the poor that you're getting that like the the way that it melds together coffee and caramel and it's creamy and oaky. I I really think that this is a great value at 5560 dollars. Yeah, I do too. I think it's an even better value at 46, right? So right there, it's in line with something like a Wild Turkey rare breed and I think it's an absolute steal. At $55 you're getting into the range of, I don't know, old Forester 1920, which I think I probably prefer to this Noah's Mill, which I personally prefer to this, but I think it's it's still a value at that price range. So I'm going to give it a 7.5 out of 10 here. And Brad, surprisingly, I think I'm finally going to be below you in my final score 'cause I'm coming out to a 38 1/2 out of 50.

46:14 Yeah, I'm at a 42 out of 50, Bob. I really enjoyed this. I think this is one of your higher rated whiskeys on the season, Brad. Yeah, it is. This is up there. I I think that for me it's like I said earlier, it's that mixture of like creamy caramel with all those nice dark coffee notes that I I was really entranced with this this bottle. All right, Brad. Well, I feel like. We have nothing snarky or mean to say this week. This is like a really good place to be in. Let's see if we can continue having goodwill towards men with the rest of DI LM for murder. What do you say? Let's get to it. All right, everybody.

46:57 That was 1792. Full proof. A foolproof of a whiskey, Bob, because that was delicious. That. Whiskey is so good, man, it redeemed the whole brand. Yeah, 100%. I I'm still a little bit amazed with how strong I swung from one side of the enjoyment spectrum to the other as we moved up in the proof points here. A a true pendulum, Brad and and talking about swinging wildly from failure to success. I have been absolutely vacillating back and forth when it comes to our next segment, which we call 2 facts and a Falsehood. Brad is going to try to stump your ball. Two all right and what is wrong?

47:42 2 facts and a falsehood. 2 Facts and a Falsehood is the part of the podcast where Brad presents three items to me as fact about the making of this movie, and I have to guess which one is actually a lie. Brad, you get to play the Ray Meland character here. We know that you have set out to do dastardly things and to try to trim that up here. I think I have secured my have I secured my winning season now? I think you are. It's currently 14 and I'm 14 and 17. So yes, I've got my so I can just throw this one away and wait for the playoffs, is what you're saying. At this point, I can bench my starters. Yeah, cool.

48:23 Well, I've got some Somehow it'll still screw the Browns over. I've got an ace in the hole here. I've got a ringer in Daniel who's going to help me out as my phone. A friend for your three supposed facts. So Brad, go ahead and hit me with your two facts and a falsehood fact. Number one, Hitchcock had chosen a very expensive robe for Grace Kelly to wear when she answered the phone. Kelly balked and said that no woman would put on such a robe just to answer the ringing telephone while she was asleep alone. She would answer it in her simple nightgown. Hitchcock agreed to do it her way and liked the way the rushes turned out. And he allowed Grace to make all of her own costume decisions in the in the subsequent movies they worked on together. Fact #2, due to Hitchcock's complaining, Grace Kelly was filmed for the very first and very last time in a movie without any makeup on.

49:13 At the end of the film, he felt that any amount of makeup on her took away from the look of spending months in jail that her character had just endured. Fact #3, four more adaptations followed Hitchcock's 1954 version three made for television movies released in 1950. I think I copied the wrong numbers. I'm. I'm immediately suspicious. Yeah. OK, so three made for television and then the one with Gwyneth Paltrow, right? And then 1998's A Perfect Murder All. Right. I am immediately drawn to #2 as the falsehood because I read quite a bit about Grace Kelly's costuming in this movie. Apparently Hitchcock wanted the color palette of all her costumes to get darker and darker and kind of more drab as the movie went on to indicate how hopeless of a situation she was in.

50:13 I also I I understand why Hitchcock would be on board with her wearing a sheer see through nightgown. You know, Hitchcock famously a dirty, dirty boy. So the second one, very, very Hitchcockian. Very Hitchcockian. The second one kind of sticks out like a sore thumb to me. We've established the remakes of this movie. I guess the only thing that Brad could have made-up is the number of remakes. Yeah, I was wondering whether four was the right number. I know of at least two, but like you, I'm suspect of the of the Grace Kelly getting to pick out her own wardrobes in films. That just doesn't seem like a Hitchcock thing.

50:56 He he seems like too controlling for that. Well, the one, Daniel, you're suspicious of #1. That's number one. Yeah, #2 is the no makeup, which. Oh wait, are we are we picking two false or two true? Well, there's only one falsehood. Two of them are true. Yes. And one of them I I think number, I think #2 would be the falsehood. OK, so the wardrobe thing was the end of number. 10 What was number? Two was Grace Kelly didn't wear any makeup at the end of the movie, which? I don't think it's true, because I don't think you get in a Hollywood movie in 1954 without at least wearing a base layer of foundation. See, I think that one is true because I do feel like she looked different at the end of the film. I mean, maybe it's just less make up, see that's. What I think #1 is false, I'm not confident. Man, this is not good.

51:45 Because now I'm thinking maybe #3 is the falsehood and Brad invented too many remakes of this movie. 'Cause even in the first half of the episode, I said, like, oh, I think there was only two remakes of this movie. Brad, I should not have benched my starters today. This is not good. All right? I was drawn to two to start with. I'm just gonna go ahead and say I'm going with my gut and saying #2, but I think I may have screwed myself over with #3 already. Robert Yeah, this is your final chance to lock it in. I mean, I've got my winnings.

52:30 I don't care, man. Tell me the tell me what happened, Bob. Not only is #2 the falsehood, I have something to reveal to you. Oh, what is that? I'm curious if you noticed anything about this year's 2 Facts and A Falsehood. Were they all number two or something? Fact number two was the falsehood every single week, was it? Really. I never noticed that. And the best part is you you like edit these episodes 17 times over, which means you heard me say at least 80 times this this season. That fact Noah Bob numbered #2 was the falsehood. I just want to point out that I'm looking at IMDb right now and according to IMDb this movie has been remade 5 times not. Wow, man.

53:24 Oh well, as as always, I plead the fact that at least one IMDb trivia fact on the dial in for murder. Page said 4 remakes. I believe you. And what what that might be going on is that one of the remakes is German. Oh, OK. Dre M for Mord, the film that we will be watching next week, no doubt about it. That's my Let's make it a double pick right there. Bob, how do you feel right now? You finished the season 18 and 14. I feel great. That's enough for like, you know, the five seed in the East. Yeah, I'll take it easily. 100% The Browns would have taken that record in 10 of the last. 11 years? Yeah, exactly.

54:16 Brad, I am so happy that you liked this movie. I'm glad that we get to ride out the season on a high note. And I want to talk a little bit about Hitchcock here. I feel like we haven't really talked a lot about the filmmaking technique of Hitchcock in these five movies, partially because we've already done it with his four most famous films. But what really stuck out to me this time during COVID. I watched a ton of Hitchcock movies. I just kind of was like, I want to start watching some movies and fill in some blind spots. And Hitchcock seemed like the perfect film maker to do that with because his movies, they're not formulaic, but you know you're going to get an entertaining movie every single time you throw out a Hitchcock movie.

54:56 Some work better than others, but I was shocked at how many of his films from the 30s all the way through to the early 70s still work really well. And yet you hit this period in like the late 50s, early 60s, where he is at the absolute top of his game and he just decides, I'm going to play around with genre, I'm going to play around with form, I'm going to do things with the structure of my movies that haven't ever been done before and certainly haven't been done by me. And so you get movies like Psycho where the protagonist is murdered 1/3 of the way into the movie. You get films like Rope. And dial in for Murder where the bad guy is revealed in the 1st 5 minutes of the film. He made a great movie with Henry Fonda called The Wrong Man, which is shot like a documentary, like it's a crazy movie. It's really, really good.

55:44 But I can't think of many major Hollywood film makers that this late into their careers started not only making masterpieces again, but completely changing up the type of movies they made. Don't you feel like directors get, like, get bored by the end of their career, though? That's what we can account. Like that's what Scorsese's doing now. He's like, you know what? I can't. I can't go out without making eight more masterpieces. Yeah, and I'm just bored. And I'm going to mess with, you know, form and function and genre, and we're just going to have a good time with it. Daniel, I actually decided to include this as a segment in the podcast because of something I read on your Twitter page the other day.

56:26 And you had said that you just got done seeing the new Wes Anderson shorts on Netflix and that they have cemented for you that you are a fan of Wes Anderson. But specifically early Wes Anderson. And I could not agree more strongly. I think that that his movies have all been kind of colossal failures in the last 5-6 years, but it's because he is so nakedly only interested in playing with form at this point. Like he. He's more interested in the experiment of the movie than the movie itself. And I think like, if I can kind of, you know, shoehorn a compliment in there. He's the only filmmaker I can think of that's doing the same kind of thing Hitchcock did, where 20 years in, he's deciding I'm just going to make something completely new. But with Hitchcock, it produced the best films of his career, and I don't think that's the case with Wes Anderson. Asteroid City didn't didn't quite land for you, Bob. Did not do it for me, Brad, but that but that our boy Thanksgiving in it.

57:32 That's true. Daniel, I'm wondering if you could just like respond to the Hitchcock thing, respond to the Wes Anderson thing. I just really love to hear your thoughts on this. Yeah. Wow. I mean, you're you. Really. Yeah. So I mean, as you said, I I had just watched the new Netflix Wes Anderson shorts the other day and was tweeting about them that I was really disappointed by them. With Wes Anderson, I think it's that his early films are all about ocean and family trauma, and his later films aren't driven by emotion at all. They're driven by his ideas of, like you said, how he can push for him and what new things he can try. And that's just far less interesting to me, especially because.

58:15 With Wes Anderson, you can always tell how hard he's trying anyway, and so you need that emotional valve to sort of like cut the intentionality of the visuals. With Hitchcock, you know, I mean, obviously cinema, this isn't, this isn't a grand idea, but the cinema was obviously very different in the mid 20th century than it is now. Fewer things have been tried, so I think it was easier to say. I'm going to try new things now and actually have a path to go where you don't have to sacrifice what it is you've you've always been good at. I think that's good. I really agree with that. I think that what Hitchcock is ultimately pushing with a movie like this is how far can I take my theories on what makes suspense?

59:06 Like, you know, Brad, you've talked about the Tarantino quote of like, pulling the rubber band to the point. Where it's about to break, but you still have the tension in it and and when it snaps is when chaos ensues and Hitchcock is obviously the master of suspense. But a movie like this is a sustained exercise in, you know, all the information from essentially minute one as the audience. And that's why I love Rope and Dial Em for Murder, because the guy manages to construct an entire movie. Around one big set up and draw suspense from it for 90 minutes. Tarantino has one film left right in his. In his ten that's that's what he says. Yeah, that's what he says.

59:50 I would love to see a Tarantino remake of Dial M for Murder 'cause it would end in a bloodbath, but it would still end with John Cleese combing his mustache. But he'd be combing blood out of his mustache, and it would be incredible. I can see it. So I'm happy you brought up Tarantino, because an idea about Tarantino that I've always loved is Chris Ryan of The Ringer once said on a podcast. I want to say it's when they were reviewing The Hateful 8, but I might be getting that wrong. But he said that his favorite thing about Tarantino is the way he can. Dramatize the the transferral of power within a conversation.

1:00:36 So you think of like the basement bar scene in Inglorious Basterds, or the conversations in Reservoir Dogs, or The Bride and Bill, you know, sitting at his table talking as Bill is telling the story about his daughter squashing the fish. And in a way, Dial In For Murder does that same thing, is it's about the changing of power within a conversation that you for the whole movie. You think Tony has the power, and even when he gets asked these questions that he can't possibly have a good answer to, he does, and he retains the power. Until then, he doesn't. I think the real question here is would Christoph Waltz be playing Tony or the Inspector? Oh.

1:01:19 I think the inspector, because I can't imagine Christoph Waltz turning down the opportunity to comb a moustache. Exactly. It's yeah, if Eddie would pull out, it's like, yay big. Yeah, the size of the pipe. Glorious bastards, right? If there's a character that can be described as impish or persnickety, like it's Christoph Waltz is gravitating towards that character. Yeah. Man Christoph Waltz. We need to do it. Tarantino, please remake this. Even if it's like 10 B, like you make like an 85 minute remake of this and it and you just consider it not even a full movie. Like, please give that to us, because that would be incredible.

1:02:01 All right. Before we get to our last segment of the day, which we're kind of already dipping our toes in, I do want to talk really briefly about the fact that this movie was an early experiment in 3D. This was a 3D movie, one of the first from what I can tell, because, you know, television had really taken over the mainstream consciousness. Theaters are trying to find ways to get people back in, you know, in their seats in the theater. And so they introduced super wide screen formats. And, you know, they had all these gimmicky things like smell O Vision or smell O Rama, where they would release different gases into the theater that you're supposed to smell at different parts of a movie. And one of the gimmicks was 3D. And you can still see some elements of the 3D in this movie, Brad. Like there are, there are specific shots where it just doesn't look right.

1:02:48 It looks like something's misaligned. There's like a lot of fuzziness going on. And I think those are kind of clearly the moments where they were experimenting with early 3D. Yeah, when Tony has told his wife to go along with his story about why she didn't call the police and you know, I'm just going to call him John Cleese. When when John Cleese is, like asking her that question and Tony's walking behind the the Chief Inspector, like just the way the camera focuses there, you're like, something's not quite right here. I don't know what it is, but something's a little off. Well, I also read about the 3D thing. I was curious, I couldn't find out is it even possible to see the 3D version? I assume it doesn't exist anymore. Warner's actually released a 3D Blu-ray of it back in like 2012. Like back when they remember when they were making 3DT VS for a hot second after Avatar you can get a 3D Blu-ray of this movie.

1:03:46 I've heard the 3D sucks because like all they used it for was like desk lamps and stuff. I was going to say you can. You can kind of see it in a few shots. Yeah. It gets like, real fuzzy, right? Like, it doesn't. They just don't look. I just wonder, like, why was this the movie chosen to be the 3D movie? There's so little in this film that is improved by having like a a table lamp jump out at you. You know what I mean? I just don't get it. Yeah, I mean, it's the 50s, man. I I, I don't think anybody knew what they were doing like like a stage play. Essentially they're like, you know what we're going to make into three DA stage play where guys walk around and talk.

1:04:26 It's going to be thrilling. We couldn't get 3D on bridge on the river Kwai when the bridge blows up, but we could get it. Here. No, no, not at all. Daniel, did you notice the 3D at all in the movie? Like I, I'm wondering what your impressions were. I didn't at all. It wasn't until I was, you know, after I watching, I read the on a chapter in my Hitchcock the Foe book to see a little bit about the of a talk making a 3D and that really took me by surprise. But then think about it. It's a movie where? Small objects in people's hands are so important, and so I wonder if three day if 3D was a way to accentuate the audience's visualization of what's objects moving from place to place.

1:05:09 I think that's a great point. Yeah, beautiful pair of nice gleaming scissors being stabbed into a man's back. I will say once again, like for as much violence as he was allowed to show. The scene of her being choked and him getting stabbed is not the easiest thing to watch. It is. It's quite violent. He falls over backwards onto a pair of scissors sticking out of his back, and you see them push in farther. I like. Not even like fast. It's like a nice slow, like I audibly went like that was that was gnarly, man. You know, it's funny that you point out the gleaming scissors too, because Hitchcock actually had a quote about the use of 3D in the movie, because he wanted the 3D on the scissors more than anything in the whole movie.

1:05:59 He was like, this is the scene after the first take where they were watching back the dailies from the 3D camera. He said this is nicely done, but there wasn't enough gleam to the scissors and a murder without gleaming scissors is like asparagus without the hollandaise sauce. Tasteless. What a quote, man. Love that. All right, guys. I think we're in a good spot to move into our last segment of the day, which we call, Let's make it a double. We're near the end of the episode, so thanks listening to the film and whiskey show. Let's favor another film with this one, even if it's struggling. It's a final segment of the day. Now let's make it a double. Let's make it a double Is the part of the show where we pick a movie to pair up with this one to make the perfect double feature? Brad, would you like to go first or should we offer it up to our guests?

1:06:48 Yeah. Daniel, why don't you go ahead? So I know you guys said at the beginning that you weren't that big fans of it, but one of my favorite Hitchcock films is Notorious. And that's what I'd pair with this one, because the most famous shot Notorious is a long zoom from Upstairs Downstairs to a key in Grace Kelly's hand that she's holding behind her back. And I was constantly reminded of that shot while watching Dial on for murder, because there are so many moments of close-ups on people holding keys, and especially people holding keys behind their back. And so I feel like those two movies are Hitchcock, you know, experimenting with the same kind of thing. Yeah, yeah. They dovetail together perfectly with that emphasis and just the general vibes of the films, these kind of crime, spy, thriller.

1:07:35 Yeah, I think that's a great pick, Daniel. And sorry, I have to correct myself. I think I said it was Grace Kelly holding a key. And notorious it's actually Ingrid Berkman. Holding a key? Yeah. Brad, you're up, man. What do you think? You, you just want to save the final. Let's make it a double for yourself. I'll go next. You want me to go next? I don't care. All right. So with my pick, I think I'm going to go more like, stay with me here. This movie reminds me of what Scorsese did with Shutter Island, where like, I don't think many people would peg Shutter Island as Scorsese's best movie. And it's funny to hear Scorsese. He just did an interview with GQ where he talked about Shutter Island and basically like dismissed the whole thing.

1:08:18 And I'm like Scorsese, like, you don't even realize how good Shutter Island is. It is a perfect genre movie. Like it could not have been better. And I think that's exactly what this is. And it's like, it is Hitchcock's Shutter Island. It's a it's an incredible exercise in genre film making. It may not have the layers to it of a movie like Vertigo, it may not be as celebrated as something like Psycho or Rear Window, but every once in a while you just need to be made assured that you're in a really good pair of hands. And that's what Hitchcock is doing here. And I think the same thing happens when you watch Scorsese do something like Shutter Island. So that's my let's make it a double.

1:08:59 I love that pairing. Yeah, Bob, I actually was thinking about Shutter Island as I was thinking about pairings for this. I came up with a better movie, though I think that this pairs perfectly with Double Indemnity. Oh, just some really gnarly murders back to. I just think, I think that those two movies back-to-back is the perfect like gritty dark. Really fun crime. I just. I think that would be an incredible movie tonight, Bob. Yeah, I mean, like I said, I think the obvious pairing here is Rope, but I'm really glad that we branched off a little bit from there and picked three really, really good movies. I guess if you wanted to, you could make a 2B night out of it because 2B is also streaming Dial in for Murder and it's remake A Perfect Murder.

1:09:52 The only thing is you have to watch like 40 minutes of commercials with both of those films. So yes, I listen. I'm still I I will plug 2B till the day I die. There's nothing like a good free movie that replicates the, like Saturday afternoon cable watching experience. It's wonderful. Yeah, 2B is great and commercials don't bother me as long as you know you're not getting an edited version of the movie in the way you used to. Yes, 100%. Although it is weird when you're watching like a like an explicit R rated movie to then go into like a Dawn power Wash commercial like it's very jarring. Sometimes there's there's a little duck covered in oil being like, bathed. All right guys, let's give this movie some scores. I'll go first here.

1:10:39 I've been kind of teetering between a nine and a nine and a half. I do think that the 1st 20 minutes are very slow, but ultimately they're really necessary to make the rest of the movie work. This is not a perfect film, but it's pretty darn close to working perfectly. I'm going to give it a 9.5 out of 10, Brad. Yeah, you are, Daniel. Where are you sitting at with dial in for murder? I I now think of everything in terms of letterbox scores. So I'm dealing with the five star metric. I'll. I'll probably do a four out of five, yeah. All right. So an an 8 out of 10, What? What is keeping it from being any higher in your book? It might just be Hitchcock himself, just the feeling of like a 4 1/2 or five star Hitchcock movie. Just like it feels like it ought to be earth shattering. And so I don't know that I can say that Dylon for murder is earth shattering, though I didn't really like it. Yeah, I I think I'm kind of in a similar place with you. It's not earth shattering, but man oh man was that a fun movie. You get in and out under two hours and you have an absolute blast.

1:11:46 Yeah, with an intermission. It's incredible. I think the intermission itself deserves 1/2 a point. They're like that alone. I feel that. Oh man, Bob, I'm going to come to a nine out of 10 on this. I think it's incredible. It's so much fun. It's my highest rated Hitchcock of these five and I think for good reason. Brad, what a way to cap off the season A a very positive movie score, a very positive whiskey score. We could not have asked for, you know, a better closer here and I think part of that is due to our guest for the day, Daniel Zwyo. Daniel, before we sign off, please plug yourself. Where can we find you and what are you working on right now? I'm at 3rd Man Movies on Twitter. I rent for a lot of places.

1:12:31 You can occasionally find me on The Ringer. You can occasionally find me on Rodger Ebert. Daniel, it is always a pleasure to have you here, Brad. Let's give a little bit of info as we cap off season seven. We're going to be back on Friday to do what we've been doing with all these directors. We're going to score Hitchcock on his ability to direct movies on a 5 point numerical metric. And then next week is when the fun really begins. Brad, why don't you tell our listeners what happens next week? Baby, we have. The bracket challenge coming your way. We're going to throw all 32 movies that we watched this season into a bracket upon which Bob and I are just going to 1 by 1 go through eliminating films, throwing them into the fiery furnace, never to be seen again by either Bob nor I.

1:13:19 It's it's quite an exciting time. I mean, we do need to specify there is a winner at the end. We don't just destroy everything and walk away. Yeah, it's it's not a Coen Brothers film. No, we're we're going to crown the champion of season seven. So join us for that next week. You can also find the brackets on our Twitter, on our Discord. And Brad, I think it's about time we plug this Discord, because Discord is a really great place that we have cultivated a heck of a community, including film and whiskey pets. Yes, yeah, there's all sorts of stuff that we're talking about over on the Discord. So if you want to join a conversation with people that you know and trust, and there's no outsiders coming on and it's just us, you can find a link to our Discord at the end of every single one of our show notes.

1:14:02 You can also find us on social media on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Tiktok or YouTube at Film Whiskey, folks. That does it for season seven. We want to say thanks again to our guest Daniels. YO. We will see you Friday for scoring Alfred Hitchcock and then next week again for the bracket challenge. But until then, I'm Bob Book. I'm Brad G and we'll see you next time.