12/5/2023 0 Comments Witness filmWhen the police come to investigate, surprise! There is no body. While unable to sleep one night, she peers out her window (yes, we're looking out windows again) and sees what she thinks is a dead body in the abandoned house across the way. This surprisingly entertaining British import features Elizabeth Taylor as Ellen Wheeler, a woman recovering from a nervous breakdown in her country home with her husband John ( Laurence Harvey) and best friend Sarah ( Billie Whitelaw). ![]() It's Rear Window meets Midnight Lace meets Gaslight. ![]() Smart, crafty, and fearless, Cheryl confronts Richter in his own apartment in the movie's nail-biting final showdown, showing 1950s audiences that women could fend for themselves just fine without a man's intervention. What sets Witness to Murderapart from other films in the genre is the presence of Stanwyck's strong female character. Cheryl uncovers Richter's Nazi past, and Richter retaliates by trying to kill her and make her death look like a suicide. Thus begins a fascinating game of cat and mouse. Stanwyck's Cheryl is unrelenting, however, and sets out on her own to prove that Richter is indeed a murderer. Sanders' character Albert Richter is a well-known respected writer, so police are reluctant to believe Cheryl's story over Richter's claims of innocence. Cheryl calls the police, but by the time they arrive, the neighbor has disposed of any and all evidence. One evening, as she's about to close her bedroom window (yes, it's another "murder seen through the window" film), she witnesses a man ( George Sanders) in the building across the street strangling a woman to death. In this rare 1950s feminist film, Barbara Stanwyck plays Cheryl Draper, a single career woman living alone and making her way in post-war Los Angeles. Released just months before Rear Window, this taut gem with a plot device similar to Rear Window was unfortunately overshadowed by all the technicolor splendor of the Hitchcock classic. Lisa knows that no woman would ever leave home without her favorite handbag, and in no time, Lisa is also convinced that Thorwald has chopped his wife into little pieces. Thorwald rifling through his wife's purse. That is until she looks out the window and sees Mr. Jefferies' socialite girlfriend Lisa Fremont ( Grace Kelly) thinks his cabin fever is getting the best of him. ![]() Thorwald is no longer in her bed, Jefferies becomes convinced that Mr. After hearing a crash and a scream in the middle of the night, then noticing the next day that Mrs. "Jeff" Jefferies ( Jimmy Stewart) spends his days spying on his neighbors, including the mysterious traveling salesman Lars Thorwald ( Raymond Burr) and his bedridden wife. Laid up with a broken leg, photojournalist L.B. Similar to the Tommy Driscoll film, this one also takes place during the hot, sultry Manhattan summer. The success of this little film paved the way for similar stories with bigger budgets and bigger stars.įive years after the success of The Window, director Alfred Hitchcock kicked the theme up a few notches with arguably the best film in the crime witness genre, Rear Window. Although a "B-movie" produced on the cheap, The Windowoffers some genuinely chilling moments, and director Ted Tetzlaff makes the most of the gritty Manhattan locales as Tommy runs for his life from the homicidal Kellersons amid the dark abandoned buildings. When the Kellersons get wind of what Tommy's been telling folks around town, they move to make the boy their next victim. Given Tommy's record of fibbing, however, neither his parents nor the cops believe Tommy when he recounts what he's seen. While trying to slip into a slumber, he peers through the window of his neighbors Joe and Jean Kellerson ( Paul Stewart and Ruth Roman) and sees them stab a man to death with a pair of scissors. On a sticky summer evening, Tommy decides to sleep on the fire escape outside his bedroom to beat the heat. His tall tales and little white lies cause his hardworking parents ( Barbara Hale and Arthur Kennedy) no small amount of frustration, and they've learned to tune out his fantastical stories. ![]() Child star Bobby Driscoll plays Tommy Woodry, a 12-year-old with a vivid imagination living in the tenements of 1940s Harlem. One of the earliest films to explore the crime witness theme, this well-crafted noir is a modern take on Aesop's "The Boy Who Cried Wolf," but with an ending that offers redemption instead of scorn.
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