A Perfect Murder movie storyline. Millionaire industrialist Steven Taylor is a man who has everything but what he craves most: the love and fidelity of his wife. A hugely successful player in the New York financial world, he considers her to be his most treasured acquisition.
But she needs more than simply the role of dazzling accessory. Brilliant in her own right, she works at the U.N. and is involved with a struggling artist who fulfills her emotional needs. When her husband discovers her indiscretion, he sets out to commit the perfect murder and inherit her considerable trust fund in the bargain.
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.
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.
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.
About the Story
Steven Taylor (Michael Douglas) is a Wall Street hedge fund manager whose investments and speculations allow him to live an extravagant, upper class lifestyle with his much younger wife Emily (Gwyneth Paltrow). Unfortunately, his risky investments are unraveling; to alleviate the financial pressure and to maintain his status, Steven will need his wife’s personal fortune, roughly $100 million. However, Emily is having an affair with a painter, David Shaw (Viggo Mortensen), and is considering leaving her husband.
Steven knows about the affair; he has also uncovered David’s dirty past as an ex-convict having a long history of conning rich women out of their money. Steven meets with David to reveal his knowledge of David’s true identity and then makes him an offer of $500,000 in cash to murder his wife. At first David wants nothing to do with the plan, claiming instead that Emily and he are in love. Steven then reminds David that he already has two strikes against him and that the third arrest would be enough to send him to prison for 15 years without parole.
Steven has already laid out a detailed plan to supply him with a firm alibi. He will hide Emily’s latch key outside the service entrance to his apartment. Steven will then go out for his regular card game, during which time his wife usually stays in and takes a bath. David has to sneak in and kill her, making it look like a robbery.
The following evening, when Emily arrives home, Steven removes the key from her keychain, hides it as planned, and then leaves. That night Steven takes a break from his card game and uses his cellphone to make a call to an automated bank number, while using a second phone to call his house. Emily leaves her bath to answer the phone but is attacked in the kitchen by a masked assailant; during their struggle she manages to kill the attacker by stabbing him in the neck with a meat thermometer.
Later Steven returns—to find his wife alive and the hired killer dead. He quickly takes the key from the killer’s pocket and puts it back on Emily’s keychain. Police arrive, led by Detective Karaman (David Suchet). They remove the assailant’s mask and Steven sees that it is not David but a stranger, someone he later learns that David hired to do the job.
Steven takes Emily to her mother’s house, from where she attempts to call David to let him know that she is all right. David, under the impression that she is dead, does not answer in time. Later, Steven and David meet on a ferry boat and decide to wait until Steven has another plan. Meanwhile, Emily learns of Steven’s serious financial troubles and tells the detective about this, acknowledging that Steven might have a motive to kill her.
David has already made a tape of Steven detailing the whole plan and demands the money promised earlier for her murder. Emily meanwhile has noticed that the key on her keychain does not belong to their home; suspecting something she goes to the apartment of the dead assailant to discover that her key, in fact, unlocks his door.
Emily confronts her husband with this and the knowledge of his financial problems. To her amazement, he exposes David’s sordid past and accuses him of being a blackmailer conning her and threatening him. When he saw the attacker’s dead body in their kitchen, he assumed it was David and took the key from his pocket so as not to implicate Emily in any way.
A Perfect Murder movie trailer.
A Perfect Murder (1998)
Directed by: Andrew Davis
Starring: Michael Douglas, Gwyneth Paltrow, Viggo Mortensen, David Suchet, Sarita Choudhury, Novella Nelson, Michael P. Moran, Robert Vincent Smith, Starla Benford
Screenplay by: Patrick Smith Kelly
Production Design by: Philip Rosenberg
Cinematography by: Dariusz Wolski
Film Editing by: Dov Hoenig, Dennis Virkler
Costume Design by: Ellen Mirojnick
Set Decoration by: Debra Schutt
Art Direction by: Patricia Woodbridge
Music by: James Newton Howard
MPAA Rating: R for violence, sexuality and language.
Distributed by: Warner Bros. Pictures
Release Date: June 5, 1998
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