Dial M for Murder
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40 free Dial M for Murder trivia questions with answers — trivia quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
Dial M for Murder is Alfred Hitchcock at his most compact: one flat, five main characters and a scheme that looks watertight before one small detail goes wrong. Released in 1954 with Ray Milland as the smooth husband and Grace Kelly as the wife he wants out of the way, it remains one of the director's best-loved thrillers. This quiz covers the whole story of the film. There are questions on the plot and its famous clues, the cast and what they did before and after, the stage hit it came from, the unusual way it was shot and released, and the remakes and tributes it has inspired since. It suits Hitchcock fans, classic film clubs and anyone who has just watched the film and wants to see how much stuck. Every answer comes with a short explanation, so you can guess first and pick up the background afterwards.
30 of 40 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Hitchcock shot Dial M for Murder in which format, a fading fad that most cinemas showed it without?
Stereoscopic 3-D
Stereoscopic 3-D was already out of fashion by the film's release, so most cinemas simply ran it flat. It was the first and only time Hitchcock shot a feature in the process.
Q 02In Dial M for Murder, what does Margot snatch from the desk to stab the intruder strangling her?
Scissors
Scissors save Margot's life when she drives them into her attacker's back. Hitchcock fretted over the shot, complaining that the blades did not gleam enough.
Q 03Two years after Dial M for Murder, Grace Kelly quit acting to marry into the ruling family of which country?
Monaco
Monaco gained a princess when Kelly married Prince Rainier III in April 1956, ending her film career at 26. Dial M for Murder was the first of her three Hitchcock thrillers.
Q 04Tony Wendice, the scheming husband in Dial M for Murder, is retired from which professional sport?
Tennis
Tennis was the playwright's own game, which he handed to his villain. He was good enough to aim for Wimbledon, but the outbreak of the Second World War stopped him competing.
Q 05Which actor took over the murderous-husband role in A Perfect Murder, the 1998 remake of Dial M for Murder?
Michael Douglas
Michael Douglas plays a Wall Street trader who wants his wife, Gwyneth Paltrow, dead. The remake merges the lover and the hired killer into one man, played by Viggo Mortensen.
Q 06Trapped by the police in the last scene of Dial M for Murder, what does Tony Wendice calmly do?
Pours a drink
Tony pours a drink and congratulates the inspector, a gentleman villain to the end. The trap closed when he fetched the hidden key himself, proving he knew where it was.
Q 07Dial M for Murder held its world premiere in which American city, the hometown of its star Grace Kelly?
Philadelphia
Philadelphia's Randolph Theatre hosted the premiere on 18 May 1954. Kelly grew up in the city's East Falls district, in a house her father had built.
Q 08Anthony Dawson, the hired killer in Dial M for Murder, later played Professor Dent in which James Bond film?
Dr. No
Dr. No cast Dawson as the henchman Professor Dent. He went on to supply the body of the faceless Blofeld, stroking a white cat, in two later Bond adventures.
Q 09Ray Milland, the villain of Dial M for Murder, had won a Best Actor Oscar playing an alcoholic in which film?
The Lost Weekend
The Lost Weekend, Billy Wilder's 1945 drama, made Milland the first Welsh-born actor to win an Academy Award. Before that he had been known mainly for light comedies.
Q 10Why does Tony Wendice, who has discovered Margot's affair, want his wife dead in Dial M for Murder?
To inherit her fortune
Tony plans to inherit her fortune because he fears a divorce would leave him penniless. He has secretly known about Margot's affair for months and has even blackmailed her anonymously.
Q 11Where does Tony Wendice hide the latchkey that lets the hired killer into the flat in Dial M for Murder?
Under the stair carpet
Under the stair carpet is the hiding place that undoes Tony. The killer puts the key back there before going in, not after, so the key Tony takes from the body is the dead man's own.
Q 12Which thriller, also starring Grace Kelly, was Hitchcock already planning while he shot Dial M for Murder?
Rear Window
Rear Window was on his mind throughout. Kelly recalled that he sat and talked to her about it all through the shoot, before they had even discussed her being in it.
Q 13Grace Kelly talked Hitchcock out of a velvet robe for the attack scene in Dial M for Murder; what did she wear?
Q 21In Dial M for Murder, what does Tony Wendice find in Margot's stolen handbag and use to blackmail her?
A love letter
A love letter from Mark Halliday gives Tony proof of the affair. He blackmails Margot anonymously, never collects her money, and later plants the same note on the dead man.
Q 22Mark Halliday, Margot's American lover in Dial M for Murder, makes his living writing what?
Crime fiction
Crime fiction is Mark's trade, and the film teases him for it: he claims he could plot a flawless killing on paper, yet admits that in real life he would overlook some detail and be caught.
Q 23After Margot is convicted of killing Swann in Dial M for Murder, what sentence does the court pass on her?
A nightgown
A nightgown was Kelly's own idea. She argued that a woman alone in a flat would not dress up to answer a ringing phone at night, and Hitchcock admitted that was better.
Q 14In Dial M for Murder, Tony Wendice blackmails Charles Swann, his old classmate from which university?
Cambridge
Cambridge is where the two men were students together, and where the playwright himself read law. Tony has quietly tracked Swann's petty swindles for some time before he pounces.
Q 15Which Hollywood studio, fresh from its hit House of Wax, produced Hitchcock's Dial M for Murder?
Warner Bros.
Warner Bros. wanted another hit like House of Wax and pressed its new camera rig on Hitchcock, who went along, possibly with reluctance. He later called the job a routine contract picture.
Q 16Which English playwright wrote both the stage hit Dial M for Murder and the screenplay for Hitchcock's film?
Frederick Knott
Frederick Knott was a reluctant writer who finished only a handful of plays, then lived comfortably on what they earned. His script kept the stage version almost intact.
Q 17The author of Dial M for Murder later wrote which stage thriller, filmed with Audrey Hepburn as a blind woman?
Wait Until Dark
Wait Until Dark opened on Broadway in 1966 and reached cinemas a year later, bringing Hepburn an Academy Award nomination. Its author then gave up writing plays altogether.
Q 18Which High Noon composer wrote the score for Dial M for Murder, his fourth for an Alfred Hitchcock film?
Dimitri Tiomkin
Dimitri Tiomkin had already scored Shadow of a Doubt and Strangers on a Train for the director. For these suspense dramas he favoured a lush style built on solo violins and muted trumpets.
Q 19How does Alfred Hitchcock make his customary cameo in Dial M for Murder, which rarely leaves one flat?
In a reunion photograph
In a reunion photograph, Hitchcock sits at a banquet table among former students, near the film's villain and his hired killer. He turns up about thirteen minutes in.
Q 20In Dial M for Murder, which of Tony Wendice's garments does Chief Inspector Hubbard secretly swap for his own?
Raincoat
Raincoat pockets are the point of the trick: Tony's latchkey is in his, so by walking off in it the inspector gains a way back into the flat once Tony has gone.
The death penalty
The death penalty turns the last act into a race against the clock. The inspector springs his trap on the day before Margot is due to be executed.
Q 24What does Mark Halliday find on the bed, stuffed with banknotes, near the end of Dial M for Murder?
An attaché case
An attaché case full of banknotes was meant to be the killer's fee. Tony had amassed the cash through small bank withdrawals over the past year so that nothing would show.
Q 25On what pretext does Tony Wendice first lure Charles Swann to his flat in Dial M for Murder?
Buying a car
Buying a car is Tony's cover story: Swann has one for sale, and haggling over the price gets him through the door. Only then does Tony reveal how much he knows about his guest.
Q 26Which actor won a Tony Award as Inspector Hubbard on Broadway, then repeated the role in Dial M for Murder?
John Williams
John Williams turned his stage inspector into a busy screen career. In the same year he played the chauffeur in Sabrina, and Hitchcock soon cast him again as an insurance man in To Catch a Thief.
Q 27Dial M for Murder was released in the same year as which Grace Kelly drama, the film that won her an Oscar?
The Country Girl
The Country Girl won Kelly the Best Actress Academy Award ahead of Judy Garland in A Star Is Born. She played the long-suffering wife of an alcoholic actor, a world away from Margot.
Q 28Robert Cummings, Mark Halliday in Dial M for Murder, had starred in which earlier Hitchcock wartime thriller?
Saboteur
Saboteur, made in 1942, cast Cummings as an aircraft factory worker wrongly suspected of arson who becomes the target of a manhunt. Twelve years on, Hitchcock made him the wife's lover.
Q 29Grace Kelly was under contract elsewhere, so which studio lent her out for Hitchcock's Dial M for Murder?
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer held Kelly's contract and loaned her to the production. Hitchcock later claimed she was the most cooperative actress he had ever directed.
Q 30Almost every scene of Dial M for Murder takes place in a flat in which district of London?
Maida Vale
Maida Vale, an affluent district of mansion flats, is home to the Wendices. Hitchcock said he did his best to avoid going outside, stressing the story's theatrical side.