Witness to Murder (1954) ** 1/2 (out of 4)Great performances are somewhat wasted in this thriller that simply has way too many logical problems to really work. Cheryl (Barbara Stanwyck) wakes up one night and looks across the street to an open window where she sees a man (George Sanders) kill a woman. Cheryl goes to the police but they don't believe her and after a while they start to think she's the one that is crazy. She strikes up a relationship with the lead detective (Gary Merrill) but the only person who knows she's telling the truth is the killer himself. WITNESS TO MURDER features three great performances from the leads but sadly there are just way too many logic issues that keep this from being a complete winner. As many other reviewers have pointed out, there were times where I wanted to jump through the screen and just smack the detective and those helping on this case. It doesn't help that right from the start no one is taking the woman serious because if anyone had done the smallest amount of work then there were all sorts of signs that she was telling the truth. Another big problem is that the Sanders character can pretty much do whatever he wants, no matter how silly it is, and the police will never question it. After a while you pretty much just have to throw your hands in the air. Another major problem I had was with the music score, which was just constantly on and being way too dramatic for its own good. With that said, the three leads really make the film worth watching and especially Sanders who is terrific as the villain. He does a great job at playing this rather dark character and I loved the way the actor played it up to scare Stanwyck while playing it cool and collective whenever facing the police. Director Roy Rowland does a nice job with the ending, which contains some suspense but sadly the screenplay doesn't give him more to work with.

The John Alton photography is layered thick and shadowy in this late Film-Noir entry. Almost every scene is back lit with diagonals and impressions draping the proceedings and it is this atmospheric artistic display that highlights this often filmed story.The characters and conventions of the Noir cycle by this time have become familiar but the shear broad strokes of the style are undeniably effective. The odd take on the villain being of Nazi descent with delusions of grandeur while meant to be of a deep personality flaw, is obtrusive and distracts from believability. It is an unwanted and unneeded take on the psychological persona of the killer.The mental hospital scene is a standout as is the finale through the construction site. The only drag is the relentless unbelieving of the authorities that wears out its welcome fast but in the long view does not hold the film back from its better parts.

The premise for "Witness to Murder" is very good but the film suffers from one serious problem--the writing. In the movie, the police almost immediately assume that a person who reported a murder is either wrong or crazy. Maybe I am a bit naive, but I really don't believe that the police would be so fast to do this and would take a reported murder A LOT more seriously. However, in the world of this film, they very quickly assume this is the case...too quickly to be realistic. Later, other such stupid assumptions sink the film."Witness to Murder" begins, not surprisingly, with Barbara Stanwyck looking out her apartment window and seeing a woman being killed in an apartment across from hers. She does what any person would do--contacts the police. And, almost immediately they assume she is wrong! Later in the film one of the cops (Gary Merrill) starts to wonder and actually begins to do his job! But, the smooth killer contacts the idiot police Captain and convinces him that he's being harassed by Stanwyck--and they lock her in the loony bin! I was frustrated by the film--it just assumed something that the film simply didn't establish. Had they had Stanwyck ACT crazy or the police investigated thoroughly THEN they assumed she was wrong it COULD have worked well.Fortunately, the film did get better...for a while. Once Stanwyck was released from the hospital, Sanders actually torments her--telling her that he DID kill the lady but that now no one would believe her! This was great--and I really wanted to see more of this. But, it then gets stupid again when Sanders is in her apartment late in the film and a neighbors SEE this and hears Stanwyck cry for help, they immediately assume she's crazy--even though they have no idea about the investigation and police opinions about Stanwyck's sanity. If a neighbor cried out for help, I sure as heck would have done SOMETHING!!! The bottom line is that the acting is fine--the writing was not. However, it's is a VERY frustrating movie. It could have been good and had a good cast...but ultimately was crap due to wretched writing...just wretched.

The story begins on a windy night in Los Angeles. Cheryl Draper gets up from bed to close her bedroom window, and lo and behold, she looks across the street at an apartment facing hers, only to see a man strangling a woman. She calls to notify what she had witnessed, little does she know she is dealing with a cunning man, Albert Richter, who will make her life miserable.This 1954 film was clearly a vehicle for an aging Barbara Stanwyck, even though the woman in the story must have been in her twenties. There are things that don't make much sense and holes in the plot, but director Roy Rowland and his writer, Charles Erskine, did what they could with a plot that goes nowhere and things are not properly explained. Nunnally Johnson cooperated with the screen treatment, but he gets no credit for it. We decided not to fight it and went along with this implausible story that shows why Barbara Stanwyck was one of the best in the business.The suave George Sanders plays the evil man that is trying to frame Cheryl by any means. Mr. Sanders was not at his best though, even as the man who's always a step ahead of our heroine. Gary Merrill is not totally convincing as the police detective Larry Matthews attracted to Cheryl. Jesse White plays his partner.The camera work of John Alton and the editing of Robert Swink make the film even better than it should have been under another team. Best sequence is the chase through the building under construction.