They just showed Dial M for Murder on Turner Classic Movies, and while watching it again, it occurred to me how these movies where they catch the murderer always end with the malefactor being arrested, but we rarely get to find out if they’re convicted. We always assume so, I guess (unless we’re a defense attorney: they must have a field day annoying their friends yammering on about how they’d get the guy exonerated in court!), but we don’t really know for sure, do we?
That’s why I think someone ought to make the sequel to Dial M for Murder: it would be called Dial L for Lawyer, and it would show Ray Milland getting a lawyer, going to trial, and getting off scot free due to some legal technicality after tons of sensational news coverage. Then they could make another sequel called Dial D for Divorce, and that could show Ray Milland using a high-powered divorce lawyer to sue Grace Kelly for divorce on the grounds of her affair with Robert Cummings, and ending with Milland getting half her money. Then, after that, they could make Dial M for Murder 2: Payback’s a Bitch, where Grace Kelly and Robert Cummings plot to terrorize and murder Ray Milland to get revenge, and Grace Kelly gets to show her mean streak. They could advertise it with the tagline: "Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned!" Maybe it could even be a “torture porn” movie.
Or else the sequel to Dial M for Murder could be Dial M for Manslaughter, where Ray Milland goes to trial but is only found guilty of manslaughter, since he never intended for Anthony Dawson to be killed, and it only happened by accident when Grace Kelly killed him in self-defense. And that’s only after Milland is found not guilty in the murder plot against his wife due to the fact that the all-male 1950s jury decided she was asking for it since she had been cheating on him with the suggestively named Robert Cummings.
(Actually, come to think of it, Dial L for Lawyer could make a great Yellow Pages ad for a criminal defense attorney's law firm. They could have it say: “Did You Dial M for Murder? Now Dial L for Lawyer!”)
