Platicsco Good story, Not enough for a whole film

Noutions Good movie, but best of all time? Hardly . . .

Arianna Moses Let me be very fair here, this is not the best movie in my opinion. But, this movie is fun, it has purpose and is very enjoyable to watch.

Billy Ollie Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

josef05 In the fifties, the dubbing of foreign movies, who treated the subject Nazis or ex-Nazis, were often different from the original. And because nearly all foreign movies and TV-shows had been dubbed in German, nobody realized the difference. Today, of course, you can find all the information on the web. In the German dubbed version the name of the murderer is Gabor Rethy. In the German version, also the scenes are cut out, where Richter is referred as an old Nazi, there is also a different version of the book cover. Besides that, this movie is a very fine example of a film noir, with great actors as Barbara Stanwyck, George Sanders and Gary Merrill.

bsmith5552 The title, "Witness to Murder" tells you what this movie is all about in three words. Made near the end of the classic film noir period, it is a riveting drama. It had unfortunately disappeared in recent years largely because of its plot similarities to Alfred Hitchcock's "Rear Window".Cheryl Draper (Barbara Stanwyck) witness Albert Richter (George Sanders) strangling an unknown female. She immediately calls the cops. Lt. Lawernce Mathews (Gary Merrill) and Sgt. Eddie Vincent (Jesse White),respond. The police at first dismiss Cheryl's story chalking it up to a bad dream. Mathews becomes attracted to Cheryl and the two begin seeing each other. Although sympathetic, Mathews continues to insist on some sort of evidence to substantiate Cheryl's story.Richter, meanwhile learns that Cheryl had witnessed the murder and concocts a plan to discredit her story and create the impression that she is going mad. Police Captain Donnelly (Harry Shannon) is convinced and has Cheryl placed in an "observation" ward at the local hospital. Following her release and despite Mathews' attempts to try and prove her story, Richter confronts Cheryl in her apartment and.....................................Barbara Stanwyck gives a stand out performance as the nervous Cheryl. Her scenes in the hospital are especially riveting as she tries to convince the medical staff of her sanity. Claire Carleton, Juanita Moore and the then 90 plus year old Adeline DeWalt Reynolds impress as the other patients in the room. Was there ever a better actor to play the suave sophisticated stuffed shirt villain than George Sanders? His cunning manipulative Richter is one of his best performances. Jesse White (the Maytag repairman) has little to do except smoke his trademark cigar.The atmosphere of the story is pure noir, complete with darkened rooms, rain soaked streets et al. The only criticism I have is the scene where Sanders confesses to Stanwyck and reveals his plans for the future. A little melodramatic and unnecessary in my opinion.After all is said and done "Witness to Murder" turns out to be a classic film noir.

st-shot Late one evening a restless Cheryl Draper (Barbara Stanwyck) witnesses a murder in the apartment building across from her. She calls the police but suspect and author Albert Richter (George Sanders) covers his tracks quickly to cast doubt on Draper's story. After he gets the body out of his apartment he goes on the offensive to frame Draper and he succeeds in having her briefly committed.Released earlier in the same year as Hitchcock's masterpiece Rear Window, Witness to Murder's two stellar lead players are given a rather far fetched at times script to work with as gaping holes in the plot and a villain with a brazen confidence that has the local law unwittingly colluding with him and browbeating and stepping all over Draper's rights rings false in more than one scene. No shrinking violet herself Draper in turn stomps on over to Richter's place to confront him and make herself an easier target. Stanwyck provides some stale and strident Sorry Wrong Number hysteria along with a brief bit of Snake Pit horror while Sander's iniquitous Richter with sadistic inflection and multi lingual talent fare much better. Gary Merrill tepidly underplays the role of detective and romantic interest while Maytag repairman Jesse White as his partner has the film's best line mocking and humming the Dragnet theme and if I may quote Sgt. Friday regarding this film I would say "Nothing here to see folks, move on".

Forn55 They don't make 'em like this any more, and perhaps that's not a bad thing.An entertaining, film noir potboiler, "Witness to Murder" is the kind of movie you might want to watch if you're in the mood to eat popcorn and yell at the screen. Hand-cuffed to a pedestrian screenplay, the movie nonetheless gives Stanwyck more than ample opportunity to ring the emotional changes and co-star Sanders to suavely menace her in the guise of nemesis. Even Merrill, known less for his acting abilities than for his square-jawed, photogenic charm, gives a reasonably creditable performance. But any moviegoer looking for ingenious plot-twists should search elsewhere; there's not a bend in this movie's narrative road that one can't see around. The real stars that shine here are the camera-work and the appropriately moody lighting.So pop your corn, turn the lights down low, and spend a pleasant 83 minutes. You won't be sorry you watched this movie, but in a couple days I'm betting you won't even remember the names of the characters in it.