ChiroDoc
Senior Member
- Location
- The Dixie Riviera
This is the most recent noir I watched the other night:
Witness to Murder (1954)
Right in the very first scene a lady looks out her apartment window to the apartment across the way, where she witnesses a vicious strangling murder. So we know from the git-go it won’t be a whodunit. The woman reports what she saw to the police. However by the time the police go to the murderer’s apartment, he has hidden the body in an empty adjacent dwelling. So the police have no choice but to presume that the woman has imagined the whole thing. In fact she’s soon thought to be crazy. The story moves on from there, winding through several twists.
This suspenseful noir has A-list stars: Barbara Stanwyck, George Sanders, and Gary Merrill, as well as several recognizable character actors such as Jesse White and Claude Akins. Unfortunately it was helmed by a mediocre director, Roy Rowland, whose entire career contained only one or two fairly memorable films. Why United Artists chose him to direct this picture with big name stars is puzzling.
But fortunately UA had the sense to hire likely the greatest of noir cinematographers, John Alton. And he didn’t disappoint here. Peppered throughout the production are many signature chiaroscuro shots with dreamy shadows, lighting, and angles. Alton likely saved the film from being a routine crime picture.
Despite Stanwyck’s heft as an actress, she’s miscast here. Her reputation as a great thespian makes it incongruous that she inhabits a part in which the melodramatic daffiness of the character strains credulity. Sanders, on the other hand, excels as a suave psychopath, although evidently we’re not supposed to wonder how an “ex-Nazi” could have such an “ever so” English accent.
The other obvious problem is its vague similarity to another film from 1954, Hitchcock’s masterpiece Rear Window, which landed in theaters several months after “Witness”. Despite their plots feeling slightly familiar, comparing the two is night and day. In fact according to "Noir Czar" Eddie Muller, screenwriters Chester Erskine and Nunnally Johnson got wind of the story of Hitchcock working on Rear Window, and raced to get UA’s film out before Hitchcock’s.
Nevertheless “Witness” is a good watch, especially for Alton’s photography and Sander’s performance. In my case I’m always fascinated by locations in Los Angeles used in the films of the ‘40s and ‘50s. Featured here are very typical locales which represented typical L.A. architecture of that era. The main settings are two buildings at the corner of San Marino St. and S. Serrano Ave., west of downtown L.A. The canopy of Stanwyck’s apartment building is often shown flapping in the breeze, likely during the time of an occurrence of L.A.’s famous Santa Ana winds. There’s also a glimpse of the grand 4 Star Theater on Wilshire Blvd., whose marquee showed its current feature, 1953’s Julius Ceasar, with Marlon Brando.
Available on various streaming services.
Doc’s rating: 6/10
Witness to Murder (1954)
Right in the very first scene a lady looks out her apartment window to the apartment across the way, where she witnesses a vicious strangling murder. So we know from the git-go it won’t be a whodunit. The woman reports what she saw to the police. However by the time the police go to the murderer’s apartment, he has hidden the body in an empty adjacent dwelling. So the police have no choice but to presume that the woman has imagined the whole thing. In fact she’s soon thought to be crazy. The story moves on from there, winding through several twists.
This suspenseful noir has A-list stars: Barbara Stanwyck, George Sanders, and Gary Merrill, as well as several recognizable character actors such as Jesse White and Claude Akins. Unfortunately it was helmed by a mediocre director, Roy Rowland, whose entire career contained only one or two fairly memorable films. Why United Artists chose him to direct this picture with big name stars is puzzling.
But fortunately UA had the sense to hire likely the greatest of noir cinematographers, John Alton. And he didn’t disappoint here. Peppered throughout the production are many signature chiaroscuro shots with dreamy shadows, lighting, and angles. Alton likely saved the film from being a routine crime picture.
Despite Stanwyck’s heft as an actress, she’s miscast here. Her reputation as a great thespian makes it incongruous that she inhabits a part in which the melodramatic daffiness of the character strains credulity. Sanders, on the other hand, excels as a suave psychopath, although evidently we’re not supposed to wonder how an “ex-Nazi” could have such an “ever so” English accent.
The other obvious problem is its vague similarity to another film from 1954, Hitchcock’s masterpiece Rear Window, which landed in theaters several months after “Witness”. Despite their plots feeling slightly familiar, comparing the two is night and day. In fact according to "Noir Czar" Eddie Muller, screenwriters Chester Erskine and Nunnally Johnson got wind of the story of Hitchcock working on Rear Window, and raced to get UA’s film out before Hitchcock’s.
Nevertheless “Witness” is a good watch, especially for Alton’s photography and Sander’s performance. In my case I’m always fascinated by locations in Los Angeles used in the films of the ‘40s and ‘50s. Featured here are very typical locales which represented typical L.A. architecture of that era. The main settings are two buildings at the corner of San Marino St. and S. Serrano Ave., west of downtown L.A. The canopy of Stanwyck’s apartment building is often shown flapping in the breeze, likely during the time of an occurrence of L.A.’s famous Santa Ana winds. There’s also a glimpse of the grand 4 Star Theater on Wilshire Blvd., whose marquee showed its current feature, 1953’s Julius Ceasar, with Marlon Brando.
Available on various streaming services.
Doc’s rating: 6/10
To quote Robert Osborn, “Gene Tierney can do no wrong.”
