Witness to Murder

In this 1954 film from director Roy Rowland, Barbara Stanwyck stars as titular witness Cheryl Draper, a single professional who looks out of her apartment window one night and sees a man strangle a woman to death in a nearby flat. Police officers Lawrence Matthews and Eddie Vincent (a sympathetic but bland Gary Merrill and a wisecracking Jesse White) find no evidence to support her story, so they chalk it up to nightmares, but Cheryl continues to investigate. The cops are terribly condescending, even with Matthews making something of an effort to follow up on Cheryl's claims. But eventually the suspect, Albert Richter (George Sanders)—an arrogant, unreformed Nazi with Nietzsche on the brain—conspires to discredit Cheryl and get her committed (in a kind of B-movie Gaslight plot). Sanders oozes insincerity as a cool, sly, control-freak villain in his classic cultured manner, but Stanwyck is hobbled by poor writing, reduced to hysterical cries of “You must believe me! You must! You must!” rather than intelligent dialogue. Witness to Murder was released the same year as Alfred Hitchcock's similarly-themed Rear Window, which only makes this dull-witted thriller look worse. Not recommended. (S. Axmaker)