I’ve been trying to find the name of an old movie I saw with my Mom a few years ago about a man who is conspiring with a friend to kill his wife to get a life insurance policy. The whole movie takes place in the Husband’s place, as I recall, with him working out the details and possible pitfalls of his various plans with a friend of his. Most of the issues they have relate to them trying to find the husband a significant alibi, at one point considering that he should go spend the night at his friend’s cabin on the night that it’s planned to have his wife killed.
***SPOILER WARNING FOR THE MOVIE I’M TRYING TO FIND AND FOR A SIMILAR MOVIE, “DIAL M FOR MURDER”***
The reason I bring up Dial M For Murder is the two movies share very similar plot points. They differ in that in Dial M for Murder, the plot to murder the wife actually plays out, with the attempt failing. In the movie that I’m trying to find, the two men plotting the murder are so particular with the details that they never carry it out. They shut down many of their own plans for the smallest of inconsistencies and loose ends, until it finally ends with the wife killing the husband at the end in quite an ironic twist. While the wife is quicker to murder the husband, she does it in exactly one of the ways that the two men would have considered especially flawed.
Correction: I found the movie. It’s called Guilty Conscience. I misremembered it as a black and white film. Furthermore, Anthony Hopkins, plays the main character. He is a defense attorney that imagines going through all the plots and checking them against a version of himself who would be trying to prove him guilty.