A Perfect Murder

A Perfect Murder is a 1998 American crime thriller film directed by Andrew Davis and starring Michael Douglas, Gwyneth Paltrow, and Viggo Mortensen. It is a modern remake of Alfred Hitchcock's 1954 film Dial M for Murder, though the characters' names are all changed, and over half the plot is completely rewritten and altered. Loosely based on the play by Frederick Knott, the screenplay was written by Patrick Smith Kelly.

Plot
Steven Taylor is a Wall Street financier, married to Emily. When his risky personal investments start unraveling, he intends to access Emily's personal fortune of $100 million. Emily is having an affair with painter David Shaw, and is considering leaving Steven.

Steven knows about the affair, and has learned that David is an ex-convict with a history of conning rich women out of their money. Steven offers David $500,000 to murder Emily. When David responds that he and Emily are in love, Steven reminds him his next arrest will mean 15 years imprisonment.

Steven hides the door key, from Emily's keyring, outside the service entrance to their lavish Manhattan condominium apartment. He attends his regular card game, during which time Emily usually stays in. David will use the key, kill her, and make it look like a robbery.

At his card game, Steven takes a break, using his cellphone to make a call to an automated bank system (adding to his alibi), while using a second phone to call Emily. Emily answers in the kitchen, is attacked by a masked assailant, but stabs him in the neck with a meat thermometer.

Steven returns expecting Emily to be dead, but finds the assailant's body. He takes the key from its pocket and puts it back on Emily's keychain. Police arrive, led by Detective Karaman. They remove the assailant's mask and Karaman notices that Steven is surprised – the body is not David's. David watches the body being removed from the building and assumes it is Emily.

Steven takes Emily to stay at her mother's. Later, David calls Steven and plays an audio tape of him discussing the plan and demands the full $500,000.

Emily visits her friend, Raquel, and tells her she has decided to leave Steven. Emily wonders aloud what Steven would do if he knew about David. Raquel agrees that Steven might kill her, and that he would get her fortune, as Emily refused to sign a prenuptial agreement.

Emily uses her connections to speak to a bank executive, learning of Steven's financial troubles. She then informs Karaman, who says that Steven's alibi is solid, though there is the minor concern that the dead assailant did not have a key.

Emily returns to her apartment for the first time, but her key does not work. This spurs her to go to the apartment of the assailant, discovering that her key unlocks his door. Emily confronts Steven with this and his financial problems. Steven responds with David's sordid past and accuses him of being a blackmailer conning her and threatening him. When he saw the dead body in their kitchen, he assumed it was David and took the key from his pocket so as not to implicate Emily.

Steven goes to David's loft with the cash, but finds a note directing him to a park. David's phone rings, and Steven answers – it is a ticketing agent, confirming David's train to Montreal. Steven meets David in a park and swaps the money for the audio tape.

Reaching the private compartment on the train, David opens the bathroom door; Steven lunges out and stabs him, taking David's gun and the money. A dying David laughs, revealing he mailed a copy of the tape to Emily. Steven rushes home and finds the mail still unopened. He hides the money, gun and tape in his safe before Emily enters the room.

Steven showers then dresses for dinner, but Emily suggests they stay in instead. As she heads out to pick up food, she mentions that they should have the locks changed since her key is missing. Steven checks the service entrance, finds the key he hid for David, and realizes that the attacker had put it back after unlocking the door. Emily suddenly appears, revealing that she knows everything now, having found the tape in the safe while he showered. When she turns to leave, Steven attacks her and she uses David's gun to kill him.

When Karaman arrives, Emily plays David's tape, then explains what happened after she told Steven, to which Karaman states she had no choice.

Comparisons to the original film
In Hitchcock's Dial M For Murder, the characters played by Ray Milland and Grace Kelly are depicted as living in a modest London flat, although it is implied that they are quite wealthy, as Milland's character, Tony Wendice, is a retired tennis champion. Michael Douglas and Gwyneth Paltrow's characters are also shown as an extremely wealthy couple. Both Kelly and Paltrow's characters are shown as striking blondes. Both films make use of the mystery of the fact that no key was found on the dead man when he was killed by both Kelly and Paltrow's characters, as both their husbands had removed them in an attempt to pin the crime on their wives. Toward the beginning of Dial M For Murder, when Kelly and Robert Cummings are shown together in the Wendice flat, and Milland comes home, Kelly greets him with "There you are!" and kisses him. Presumably in homage to the original film, Douglas's character greets Paltrow exactly the same way when she arrives home to their apartment at the beginning of A Perfect Murder.

The title A Perfect Murder matches the translation that was made in some countries of Hitchcock's film, known in Italian as Il delitto perfetto and in Spanish as Crimen perfecto; in French it was Le crime était presque parfait.

Production
Principal photography began on October 14, 1997. Filming took place in & around the city of New York. The location of Steven & Emily's apartment was filmed at The Convent of The Sacred Heart building in Manhattan. The Bradford Mansion was filmed at the Salutation House in Long Island. Filming ended on January 13, 1998.

Alternate ending
An alternate ending exists and is presented, with optional commentary, on the original Blu-ray disc release. In this version, Steven comes back from finding the key replaced where he had hidden it and Emily confronts him in the kitchen rather than in their foyer. The scene plays out with the same dialogue, but Steven never physically attacks her. He still tells her that the only way she'll leave him is dead, and she shoots him. Steven then says "You won't get away with this" before dying and Emily purposely injures herself, making it look like self-defense.

Box office
The film opened in second place at the box office behind The Truman Show, grossing $16,615,704 during its first weekend. It ended up with a total worldwide gross of $128,038,368.

Critical response
The film received mixed reviews from critics: Stephen Holden of The New York Times called it a "skillfully plotted update of Frederick Knott's play". Roger Ebert, who gave the film 3 stars out of 4, wrote "[It] works like a nasty little machine to keep us involved and disturbed; my attention never strayed". Meanwhile, James Berardinelli wrote that the film "has inexplicably managed to eliminate almost everything that was worthwhile about Dial M for Murder, leaving behind the nearly-unwatchable wreckage of a would-be '90s thriller." A Perfect Murder holds a 55% "Rotten" rating on Rotten Tomatoes and a score of 50/100 ("mixed or average reviews") from Metacritic.