Some would have it that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.  Which explains numerous attempts by admirers to replicate what Hitchcock did so brilliantly.  Sometimes filmmakers do work in the manner of Hitchcock, and every now and then one has the temerity to attempt a remake.

As Hitchcocks go, Dial M For Murder is not one of the stronger ones, as elaborated here.  A Perfect Murder is an American remake from 1998.  In some respects, it seems more dated than the original, with Michael Douglas as a sharkish tycoon, Viggo Mortensen as the artist whose speciality is con art, and Gwyneth Paltrow as the woman whose death will see one or other of the men better off by a substantial amount.

Sure, the remake is in many ways an improvement on the stagy original.  But it takes a while to get beneath its sheen: Mortensen’s studio is, of course, in a warehouse accessed by a cage-style lift, Douglas looks and sounds pretty much like he did in Wall Street, and trappings of wealth are very much period.

Beneath that surface, more interesting things are happening, and it’s writer Patrick Smith Kelly that’s to be applauded for making Paltrow’s character Emily Taylor considerably more interesting than the trophy wife she first appears to be.  The heiress speaks Spanish and Yiddish, and this suggests a more fluid nature than either of the two men who are involved in plotting her demise.

Where Douglas and Mortensen are solid, brittle, Paltrow is chameleon-like, at home with other cultures, as seen by her easy rapport with a Jewish cop and a Latino gang member, and in her close friendship with an Indian woman.  She can enter other peoples’ worlds, where the men just want to enter her, whether it’s physical entry with with a penis or knife, or financial entry of her bank account.

Significantly, though I suspect I’m the only person to draw this conclusion, Paltrow’s character bathes just once a week: as Douglas points out, she has a bath when he has his regular card game.  Maybe it’s her natural reek that attracts both men, as well as the stench of her money: Napoleon famously told Josephine not to bathe before their liaisons, and Paltrow too seems to have the sweet smell of success.  And when she goes to explore what the truth is about the man sent to kill her, it’s surely her natural aroma that protects her when she’s in the slum building where the bad guy lived.

Am I kidding there or not?  Well, it might seem silly, but it fits in with Paltrow’s mercurial shapeshifting nature, so maybe there is something in that theory after all.  And having thoughts like that is certainly a distraction from some of the cheesier elements of the film’s look and sound: power suits and synthetic drums.

All of this makes me think what a 21st century take on Dial M For Murder could be like.  I’d love to see one set in China, which is increasingly obviously the world’s dominant economic power.  A new take on the story set in contemporary China, where money is changing values right now, and where conspicuous consumption is the order of the day, would be a film I’d love to see.

Either that, or an episode of Shameless in which the twisty turny plot is played out on the Chatsworth Estate, and where instead of great fortunes, people are prepared to kill for an incapacity benefit cheque.  At any rate, those throwaway ideas demonstrate that there’s plenty of room for reinventing Hitchock yet.