The Difference Between Hitchcock and Davis

Dominique Polyniak

History Homework        

The Difference between Hitchcock and Davis

The two movies Dial M for Murder directed and filmed by Alfred Hitchcock, and A Perfect Murder directed and filmed by Andrew Davis were made at two very different eras. Dpial M for Murder was created in 1954, and A Perfect Murder was created in 1998. The second movie A Perfect Murder was inspired by Hitchcock's masterpiece, however due to the large gap in time that the movies were created they are very different in some ways.  The gender roles, definition of success, main conflicts, language, sexuality, and action are all different in this film. These differences are mostly a result of the changing American Culture during these time periods.

        The first major change can be seen in gender roles. In Hitchcock's version, Tony was the working man and his wife Margot came from money which is why she was so wealthy. However in Andrew Davis's rendition they both David and Emily are hardworking, and Emily is a business woman who earned her money. Although it does seem that her parents were wealthy as well but that is not mentioned in the movie. Emily also has a much more out spoken personality, whereas Margot was very submissive to her husband.

        The second major change was in the definition of success. For Tony and Margot success was purely monetary, with a large emphasis on having the proper etiquette. For David and Emily success was based on the things that they owned such as artwork. Emily is also portrayed as successful when she uses the multiple languages that she knows in certain situations. In Hitchcock's version Tony was an ex tennis player who married into money, rather them him being successful and rich to begin with. This is why there was a pressure he felt to kill his wife in order to receive her money, because he, on his own, had no money. Whereas, David had his own company prior to marrying Miss. Emily and he was very successful and wealthy when they were married. However, his company was now going bankrupt and he wanted to kill his wife to receive her money.

        The third major change was the main conflicts of the story. What was interesting about these two movies is that the later one was made in inspiration of the older one which made the two stories are very similar. This made it easier to find the differences between the stories. In Hitchcock's version Margot is having an affair with someone else, and they are in love. Margot still respects her husband and shows some deep affection towards her husband Tony, despite being involved with somebody else. In the newer rendition, Emily is having an affair with a painter who is struggling financially. The painter is using Emily for her money, and David later uses the painter as his weapon against Emily. This was one main difference in conflict: the painter did not love Emily and the man that Margot was having an affair with did love Margot. Emily also does not have any affection towards her husband anymore, and her disloyalty is portrayed in the movie many times. Also in Hitchcock's film Tony hired an outside man that he knew from college to kill his wife, however in Davis's film David hires the man who is having an affair with his wife to kill her. There is a twist in Davis's film that is not present in Hitchcock's and that is that the painter hired somebody else to try to kill his wife and did not perform the task himself. This poses to become a problem later, because the painter blackmails David because he recorded him when he had asked him to kill his wife. These are some changes in conflict that are present in the two different movies.

        The language in the two movies were very different. There were no curse words in Hitchcock's film and the language was clean and polished, where in Davis's film there were an abundant amount of curse words and dirty language. The language in Davis's film was modernized, because of the time period it was filmed in. In the 50s polished language was a sign of success, and there was very little cursing in movies. In the 90s there was not an emphasis or desire to speak in a polished or polite manner, one was able to express themselves in any means possible. There was more acceptance for curse words in the 90s, and it was used to add flare, passion, and character the scenes and to the dialogue. If this kind of dialogue was used in the 50s in films, it would be deemed inappropriate and a sign of foolish ignorant behavior.