
Bonus:
Here's some cool footage of Capra and cast on the set of POCKETFUL OF MIRACLES in 1961:
Trailer:
WITNESS TO MURDER (1954; Roy Rowland)
Boy George Sanders sure can strangle a gal to death, and Barbara Stanwyck gets to witness it first hand from her bedroom window across the way (looking into his window). A few months before Hitchcock's color Vistavision classic REAR WINDOW hit theaters in the U.S., this down and dirty black and white noir arrived on the scene. Though despite it's excellent cast (Stanwyck, Sanders, and Gary Merrill) a familiar premise and some good-looking photography by noir stylist John Alton, this film remains strangely much less well-known.
Stanwyck plays Miss Cheryl Draper (no relation to Don) who, as I mentioned, witness a murder committed by Albert Richter (Sanders), a well-to-do and very proper writer. A cop (Gary Merrill) is sent to investigate and of course Richter plays totally oblivious. One thing this film has that REAR WINDOW doesn't is any doubt at all that the killer in question is guilty. We see him do it, we see him move the body and we see him sweat the cops after they leave. There is no mystery about any of that. So when the cops think Miss Draper is a little confused and imagined the whole thing, we know that's not true. But She still doubts herself so she purchases some...wait for it...binoculars(!) to examine Richter further. Very familiar right? Not that I think this had any influence on REAR WINDOW, but I am always amused when two films come out so close together with these kind of similarities. I will say this for George Sanders- I kind of prefer his bad guy roles to his other stuff. There's just something about him that reeks of "villainous dick". See him in films like MAN HUNT and THE PICTURE OF DORIAN GRAY to see other examples of what I mean. He is of course perfect here and has a very gentlemenly yet creepy demeanor that is perfectly chilling. Gary Merrill is a very good and unjustly underrated actor with the ever so slightest hint of Hestony-ness to him ( less than James Franciscus and Bradford Dillman). Check him out with Bette Davis in ANOTHER MAN'S POISON for a really solid example of what he can do. He's great in WITNESS though, and brings things up a notch for sure.
Movies like this are inherently frustrating of course because we know what's going on and everyone else (save Sanders) doesn't. It also veers into that sketchy and disturbing area that is the psychological examination of people in the 1950s. There are some scenes in the "observation ward" of a mental hospital and that stuff always tends to make me squirm slightly. As much as it's a dramatized representation of the way things went down in a place like that, it's hard to shake the thought that a lot more folks got themselves messed with seriously in places like that during this period. In the case of this film not much is shown in those scenes, but the way things have been set up and the popular opinions of Cheryl Draper's sanity makes it all very tense and I enjoyed that.
This is a rare noir type film shot in widescreen (1.75 to 1) as opposed to the Academy ratio you might expect. This helps it a little I think. Brings us in a little closer somehow and I liked that about it. Transfer looks good though there were a few shots that looked a little odd, like a dupes from an old print or something. Good disc overall.
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