Tag Archives: murder

Spoiler Alert! I’m pretty much going to recount the entire plot of Witness to Murder, including the dramatic climax.

I did not think Witness to Murder (1954) was going to be particularly cheesy when I saw that it starred Barbara Stanwyck, but you never know. They were still cranking out movies at a pretty good pace in the ’50s. They couldn’t all be cinematic masterpieces.

Things start right out excitingly with Stanwyck looking out her window to witness a murder (hence, the title) in an apartment across the street. She really has quite a good view. Some may carp over a murderer acting in front of an open window with the lights on, but, hey, it almost worked for Raymond Burr in Rear Window. Anyways, when we meet the murderer, played by George Sanders, we quickly learn that he is egotistical enough to feel he can get away with anything.

Stanwyck quite sensibly calls the police. This is about the last sensible thing she does, but we can’t really complain about that, because the movie would have been much shorter otherwise. Also, Sanders would have probably gotten away with murder and that character is definitely not likable enough for us to want that to happen.

Gary Merrill and Jesse White play the cops that show up to investigate. White doesn’t really have much of a part. His presence at least enabled me to make a couple of bad jokes about the Maytag repairman, but I must also say, kind of a waste of a good comedic actor.

Sanders is one of those lucky movie murderers who is easily able to cover his tracks. He has one bad moment when he freezes, mid-drag while moving the body, to stare at the elevator dial, afraid the cops are in it. Which struck me as a little silly. I guess I don’t think like a movie murderer, but if I’m dragging a dead body by the elevator and think the cops might be on it, I think I would be more likely do drag the body FASTER, not stand staring at the elevator to see if I’m right.

Now that I’m pondering the point, though, it occurs to me that perhaps he thought the dead lady’s high heels would ka-thunk on the floor and the cops would hear. Maybe he was trying to come up with a good story, one that might begin, “Thank God you’re here! Look what I just found!” We’ll never know, because the elevator passes by, and Sanders is able to stash the body in a handily located empty apartment (did I mention he’s a lucky murderer?) and change into pajamas in time to open the door to the cops, all sleepy-eyed innocence.

The cops are easily convinced that Stanwyck dreamed the whole thing. They are later on very amenable to being convinced that she’s crazy. Stanwyck obligingly has hysterics when confronted with Sanders’ trumped up evidence, landing herself in the loony bin.

I was a little disappointed she doesn’t spend more time in the Snake Pit (it isn’t really very snakey or even very pitty, but I thought I’d throw in another old movie reference to sound more erudite) (did it work?). For one thing, she might have reformed things, like that lady did in Bedlam (perhaps you read my blog post about that movie).

She gets sprung fairly quickly and easily, I believe due to the good offices of Merrill. You may have guessed the two of them fall in love. I always enjoy a love interest, especially when the guy falls for a girl who has a little on the ball, which Stanwyck does, even though the script calls for some typical stupid movie female behavior.

Which brings us to the dramatic climax.

OK, Stanwyck has figured out how Sanders broke into her apartment to type the poison pen letters that convinced the cops she was crazy (yeah, I didn’t explain that part very well earlier, but I’m sure you can keep up). However, she does not, for example, call an all-night locksmith to put in a dead bolt or even spend the night with a girlfriend (actually, I’m not sure Stanwyck has any girlfriends in this; the producers didn’t really spend a lot on minor characters). Well, I suppose one can’t think of everything. She is awfully tired, having not gotten a lot of sleep in the loony bin.

Anyways, guess who’s waiting for her in the bedroom, having already typed a fake suicide note. Stop! As I type this in, I suddenly say, “Waaaait a minute!” The police have Stanwyck’s typewriter. They took it to prove she typed the poison pen letters. Either they nicely put it back rather than properly in the evidence room, or Sanders, in addition to being lucky, is foresighted enough to have ALREADY typed the note. But I digress.

Sanders’ plan is to pitch Stanwyck out the window. Suddenly a lady cop shows up, sent by Merrill to check on Stanwyck. Sanders is, of course, ready with his story, that he was trying to STOP this poor, suicidal crazy woman. Does Stanwyck realize she is now safe? Sanders can’t possibly thrown her out the window and pretend it’s suicide with a lady cop standing right there, for heavens’ sake!

In her second biggest Stupid Movie Female Move of the picture (stand by for number one), Stanwyck runs away screaming. Nobody seems to believe that the guy chasing her wants to kill her, but for some reason they all join the chase. Soon a whole crowd is after her. Boy, can that woman move in a pair of high heeled pumps! Sanders is the only one who can keep up with her!

Then she does the single, absolute biggest Stupid Movie Female Move imaginable: she runs all by herself into a deserted high rise building, all the way up all the stairs and OUT ONTO THE ROOF!!! What a good place to go when you are running away from a man who wants to throw you out of a building and pretend it’s suicide.

It’s a good thing this was the climax, because I was ready to wash my hands of the Stanwyck character after that.

Predictably, nobody in the busybody crowd follows them up the stairs. Equally predictably, Merrill arrives on the scene, armed with Proof that Sanders is a killer. I don’t suppose anybody will be surprised to know that Merrill’s proof is a spurious as the stuff he’s been rejecting from Stanwyck all through the picture.

No matter. This is a movie, he’s the hero, and he’s going to save the day. I didn’t need to include another spoiler alert before I told you that, did I?

Spoiler Alert! It is possible I will give away almost every plot point for the following movie. But I promise not to tell who the murderer is (there now, you see, I just gave away that there’s a murder!).

Saturday before last when I perused the listings for TCM, I was delighted to note a Whistler movie. After I reviewed two Whistler movies in this space, a reader told me there were eight Whistler movies. Naturally I would like to see them all. I even hoped this would be a weekly thing on TCM — a Whistler movie every Saturday for eight weeks. Alas, this past Saturday offered no Whistler movie. No matter; I still had The Voice of the Whistler on DVR. We watched it Sunday afternoon.

I noted that the movie was directed as well as co-written by William Castle. That boded well. The movie opens a little differently from the other two Whistler movies I’ve seen, with a shot of a lonely lighthouse on a rocky cliff with crashing waves. Still, a lonely lighthouse is good for a scary movie — remembering a movie I’ve reviewed recently whose name escapes me but which featured a character named Vi who gets pitched out of the lighthouse onto the rocks below.

We hear the familiar whistling and see the shadow, this time on a wild, craggy shore instead of a back alley in a city with a thousand secrets (I guess “city with a thousand secrets” sounds more Raymond Chandler than William Castle).

The entire movie is a flashback. Steven has pointed out that this is a common technique in old movies. The flashback is of course a time-honored fictional technique in many mediums. In general, telling the whole story as flashback is going a little far, but in this case it is appropriate.

We are introduced to a woman who despises and fears loneliness yet lives alone in this abandoned lighthouse (complete with cat). Why? It is a result of greed and murder. At least, looking back I can’t quite remember if the Whistler actually mentioned murder in his intro. But why would the Whistler be telling a story that did not involve murder?

As it turns out, we have to wait a long time for the murder. First we meet an industrialist. This movie is unusual in that we actually get to see what his business is — he makes cars. At least, he bought the manufactory and made a huge success of it. Perhaps he has other businesses to make a kind of an empire. At any rate, he’s filthy rich and has no friends.

Just about the time he decides to get a personal life, he has a heart attack. En route to a boat cruise, to relax and regain his health, he collapses again and ends up in the care of a cockney cab driver living in one of those movie working class neighborhoods I would love to live in.

Sparrow, the cab driver and easily the most likable character in the picture, begins to teach Rich Guy how to gain friends. It seems Sparrow was once a boxing champ, plenty of money but no idea who his real friends were or how to enjoy life. Now he walks down the street, greeting folks by name, asking about their families, and basically giving Rich Guy a lesson in a better way to live.

At a clinic to which Sparrow brings Rich Guy, we meet a beautiful nurse, who will eventually become Lonely Lighthouse Lady (complete with cat). She is engaged to a young doctor but is putting off marriage because she does not want her kids to grow up in the poverty she sees at the clinic.

Excuse me, what? The neighborhood is peopled with friendly working class salt of the earth. The clinic is a compassionate haven that strives to treat the whole person. Yet it is a hole of squalid poverty from which the nurse is determined to escape?

Everybody loves her. In fact, Rich Guy falls in love with her, after a series of events that I won’t spoil for you. Eventually the stage is set for murder.

I have to say, the Nurse/Lonely Lighthouse Lady (complete with cat) is not a consistent character. She veers from being a generic beautiful movie girl, to a dame with a hardscrabble past determined to make something of herself (by marrying; this is the ’50s, after all), to being a shrew witch, to being, you know, Lonely Lighthouse etc.

Her young doctor lover — “the young man who doesn’t have to be rich but doesn’t dare to be poor,” according to a later conversation — is hard to get a grip on too, but that may be because he is busy reacting to his girlfriend’s changes.

Rich Guy, in the meantime, seems to have forgotten the life lessons taught him by Sparrow. Did I say Sparrow is the most likable character in the picture? On second thought, he is the only likable character in the picture. Except for a few really minor players who we see only once or twice briefly.

The whole movie is really more of a character study than a thriller, horror or murder movie. Which would have been fine had the characters been better developed. As it is, by the time we finally get to the murder, it is too little too late.

And then it’s like they ran out of time, because the Whistler comes back on as a voice-over and wraps everything up. We are left with the image of the Lonely Lady in the Lighthouse, petting the cat. And the hope that TCM will show a more exciting Whistler movie soon.