Cheryl Draper peers thru her bedroom window one night and sees a woman being strangled by the man who lives opposite her. She rings the police but after visiting the man they can't find any semblance of trouble or threat from the man accused. Nobody believes her and she refuse to give up on bringing out the truth, but the suave killer starts to turn the tables on her and sets about having her committed for being insane, the cat is well and truly after the mouse.
Witness To Murder is a highly efficient Crime/Drama, boasting smart turns Barbara Stanwyck & George Sanders in the two main roles, the picture is something of an ode to grainy noirish story telling. Excellently photographed by John Alton, the story is perfectly simple, thankfully the pacing and writing is spot on and it gives us a tight piece that climaxes quite brilliantly in a way that Hitchcock most surely approved of, into the successful mix is that Roy Rowland's direction flows a treat and his use of shadows is great and adds to the mounting suspense. I mention Hitchcock because his Vertigo some four years later has striking resemblances to work in here, not copies of course, but certainly genre staples being noted me thinks. Also coincidental that Rear Window was released the same year as this film, and this probably accounts for why this film with the similar theme was largely ignored.
Shame, this needs more people to see it it would seem. 7/10