Barbara is a Witness

Cheryl Draper (Barbara Stanwyck) awakens one night, and goes to her bedroom window. She sees her neighbor,  Albert Richter (George Sanders) murder a woman. She calls the police, but when officers Lawrence Matthews (Gary Merrill) and Eddie Vincent (Jesse White) investigate, they find nothing. Was Cheryl really a Witness to Murder (1954)?

Though this is perhaps not one of Ms. Stanwyck's best roles, she takes control of the character with both hands, and brings it up to a new level (check out this wonderful discussion from the TCM website). What could have been a weak and helpless woman, in Ms. Stanwyck's capable hands, become someone of power and sense. Sure, she's afraid, and she makes some mistakes, but she learns from them. Case in point is the scene with the psychiatrist (Lewis Martin) in the mental hospital to which Cheryl has been taken. She's terrified, but she knows the only way to get out of the hospital is to take command of the situation - which she does. The disinterested psychiatrist is forced to sit up and take notice of this thoughtful woman.

Though the plot is nowhere near as good as other films in the genre, the film is reminiscent of other movies like Rear Window (1954; released AFTER this film), Gaslight (1944), and Sorry Wrong Number (1948). There is a certain amount of voyeurism - we watch Cheryl purchase binoculars to spy on her neighbor - as well as a great deal of menace perpetrated on women by men. While our trusty police officers aren't trying to gaslight Cheryl, it's what they succeed in doing. And, like Leona trying to convince the police of a pending murder, Cheryl too is ignored as she tries to convince some really stupid men of what she has witnessed. According to Stanwyck by Axel Madsen, the producers were aware that Rear Window had a similar premise when they began production on Witness to Murder, but believed their film had the punch to compete with it. Frankly, it just didn't.

Witness to Murder is saved from true lameness not only by Ms. Stanwyck's strong performance, but also by the presence of George Sanders as the villain. Mr. Saunders is an excellent actor; he doesn't try to whitewash Richter or attempt to make the audience like him. Richter is a cad through and through, but you enjoy every minute that he is on the screen. That he is a former Nazi is merely fodder for thought. He doesn't need to be anything but what he is - a self-absorbed, hateful bully who is enjoying his cat and mouse game with Cheryl.

George Sanders started his career in the U.K. He'd been born in Russia, but the family emigrated when he was 11 (at the start of the Russian Revolution). He began appearing in films in Great Britain, like 1936's Strange Cargo (not be be confused by the 1940 Joan Crawford film of the same name). That same year, he played the despicable Lord Everett Stacy in Lloyd's of London. But the wonder of George Sanders is that he played a variety of remarkable characters, from the devious Addison DeWitt in All About Eve to the heroic Simon Templar in The Saint series. He was a weak philanderer in The Ghost and Mrs. Muir (1947), and a dastardly pirate in The Black Swan (1943). He even did a musical (Call Me Madame 1953). There really wasn't much he couldn't do - and do it well. He married five times (including marriages to both Zsa Zsa and Magda Gabor). His marriage to Benita Hume Colman (after she was widowed) lasted 8 years, until her death in 1967. He published his autobiography (Memoirs of a Professional Cad) in 1960; in 1958, he did a record of Songs for the Lovely Lady. He continued working in film and television, but by 1970, he was ill. He committed suicide in 1972, age 65. His friend and colleague Brian Aherne published a biography, A Dreadful Man (1979) and David Niven discussed Mr. Sanders in his memoir, Bring on the Empty Horses (1975).

Where George Sanders is always memorable, the same cannot be said of Gary Merrill. While he is certainly likeable as Larry, he's also frustrating. He's smart enough to think that Cheryl is a remarkable woman, but he can't really accept that she is telling the truth. It takes him WAY too long to realize that Richter is the bad guy. By the end, you really want Cheryl to save herself and not end up as a damsel in distress. She's the only one with any real brains.

There was one small point that rather irked us as city dwellers.  Cheryl's door only has a snap lock on it, making it easy for Richter to access her apartment when she is not home. We found it hard to believe that a single woman would have such a flimsy lock and that she would not check to see that the latch had caught when she left her apartment. It works as a plot devise, but not so well as "realistic" drama. (We also found it hard to believe that Cheryl would - SPOILER ALERT - run to a high place when Richter's goal seems to be to throw her out a window. But the lock was more aggravating.)

The film was adapted for the Lux Video Theatre in 1956, with Audrey Totter in the role of Cheryl (AFI catalog). It's probably not surprising that it wasn't a huge hit at the box office, since Rear Window would open a mere three months later, with a far superior plot line.

While not a bad film, this isn't really all that good. The saving grace is the opportunity to see Ms. Stanwyck and Mr. Sanders bounce off one another in their only screen appearance together. We'll leave you with a trailer from the film.