Although not as extreme as his more stylized work - there are no deep-focus compositions - but the artful lighting lends drama to dull sets and excitement to a fairly tame fight. Cameraman John Alton keeps ordinary scenes in apartments and offices slightly under-lit, and everywhere else makes fine use of expressive shadows. The difference is in the choice of cinematographers.
#Glenn sanders deepfocus movie#
This movie can afford Stanwyck but in other aspects is filmed at a similar level of production. All three share mostly flat, uninteresting visuals. In 1954 a number of low budget producers were distributing through UA, making crime films like Without Warning!, Vice Squad and Wicked Woman. Topping the thrills of "Double Indemnity" and "Sorry, Wrong Number"! Because Cheryl isn't supposed to be a shrinking violet - she aggressively investigates Richter's apartment - the plot of Witness to Murder drives the characters instead of the other way around. That really isn't "our" Barbara, who emanates enough force of personality to dominate any situation. Draper consistently folds up under lame pressure from the cop (later, her cop-boyfriend) and consistently loses control of her emotions when bullied and rattled by the officials confronting her with Richter's rigged evidence. Instead of believing that Cheryl is a ditz who has lost her marbles, we think the cops might frame the sneeringly obnoxious Richter just to see him squirm.īarbara Stanwyck does what she can but is also aware of the limitations of her own star personality: Stanwyck simply doesn't play characters this weak. That he keeps showing up at the precinct should be suspicious, even without taking into account that he's an unsuccessful author whose books promote Nietszche's superman theories (add Rope to the source pile, there). George Sanders plays the nasty villain with his usual oily superficiality, putting on a show of condescending cooperation with the police. At every step of the investigation the cops dismiss her as a ninny the 'evidence' won't back up her eyewitness account, and when a woman is involved no further thought is necessary. Witness to Murder is an only partly successful exercise in the paranoia sweepstakes. But he thinks she's gone too far when she claims that Richter means to kill her and make it look like suicide. Lawrence Mathews has expressed interest and concern for Cheryl, but has always maintained that she's simply mistaken. By faking threat notes he induces the cops to have Cheryl institutionalized for observation. Richter is eventually able to tell her to her face that he's going to win.
This alerts Richter, who begins a careful plan to make Cheryl appear utterly unstable, so that the authorities will believe his claim that is she who is persecuting him. Cheryl is convinced to drop the matter, but snoops on her own. Even before they meet her, they seem to assume that the whole thing was Cheryl's imagination.
But the clever killer Albert Richter (George Sanders) hides the body and puts on a good show for the investigating officers Lawrence Mathews and Eddie Vincent (Gary Merrill & Jesse White). Interior decorator Cheryl Draper (Barbara Stanwyck) looks out her apartment window one night and sees a man strangling a woman to death. And if that's not enough extremes for Stanwyck to perform, the show also tosses in a bit of The Snake Pit. Erskine's original story also shares a number of similarities with the 1949 hit The Window, a movie about a boy witnessing a killing through an apartment window, and then being chased to the top A founding creator of the noir style, Stanwyck won acclaim for her turn as a terrified woman marked for murder in the immensely popular Sorry, Wrong Number. He'd just come up with the stories for the noir pictures Angel Face and Split Second, and took on producing chores as well for a third, Witness to Murder. In 1954 she worked for independent producer Chester Erskine, who had written, produced and directed the hit The Egg and I and written and directed odd pix like Androcles and the Lion. She weathered the 1950s in fine form, making her share of great pictures and always playing leading roles. except the murderer himself!"īarbara Stanwyck was one of the most capable and savvy Hollywood actresses ever, a star who never gave a bad performance. Starring Barbara Stanwyck, George Sanders, Gary Merrill, Jesse White, Harry Shannon, Claire Carleton, Lewis Martin, Juanita Moore, Claude Akins. Street Date Novem/ available through Kino Lorber / 29.95
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