Witness to Murder (1954, Roy Rowland) (Patreon)

57/100

Now here's a movie that refrains from unnecessary throat-clearing. Elapsed time until the key witness in Witness to Murder witnesses a murder: 56 seconds. (That includes the opening titles.) While I've never seen Sorry, Wrong Number, this feels like an attempt to recapture its magic, with Barbara Stanwyck in constant peril for knowing too much; it also superficially (and coincidentally, having been released four months earlier) resembles Rear Window in a few respects. Oh, and did I mention the overwrought asylum sequence that seems to anticipate Shock Corridor? Anyway, solid low-key suspense, for the most part, with George Sanders a memorably smug villain harboring an agenda that startled me when revealed despite having been blatantly foreshadowed. Playing meek and terrified wasn't Stanwyck's forte, but then it's hard to think of a major female star from the era who didn't radiate strength and might have been ideally cast in this role. (Susan Hayward, maybe?) Some clever plotting early on, counterbalanced by a limp quasi-romance with detective Gary Merrill (Margo's bland fella in All About Eve) and a ludicrous finale that's dead-set on getting everyone atop a very tall building from which at least one character can plummet. As a huge 5,000 Fingers of Dr. T. fan who'd never seen anything else by Roy Rowland, I was particularly impressed by the film's striking monochrome look, which frequently pushes its light/shadow contrast so hard that you'd think this were a modern-day noir homage rather than a bona fide example of same. You'd never guess that the same person directed both, which I guess counts as a demerit to hardcore auteurists but suggests laudable versatility to me.