Dear Murderer & Witness to Murder

This weekend I got to enjoy to noir films from different periods.

Dear Murderer is a 1947 movie from director Arthur Crabtree.
It stars Eric Portman and Greta Gynt.

Watch Dear Murderer Now

All and all, this was a fun movie. Greta Gynt character (Vivian Warren) immediately inspired dislike. But it didn't take long for Eric Portman's character (Lee - Vivian's husband) to become distasteful either. It was fun to be routing for no one.

This movie almost lost me at the outset.
I understand that sometimes we must "suspend disbelief", but to have to do so in the first 10 minutes of the film is a hard pill to swallow. I give it the benefit of the doubt though, because the scene is between two 1940's era proper English gentlemen. So lets say I talked myself into believing (at least for 90 minutes) that people would be that kind or non-confrontative with each other. Problem: to believe otherwise ruins the bedrock of this film.

Once I got past that little speed bump, the film carried itself along nicely.
Greta Gynt was perfectly cast and performed well. Not only was her hair perfect and her costuming capturing, but she oozed femme fetale. Of course, no matter how good a job Eric Portman did (and he was good), it was hard to believe the two of them as a match i.e. Greta is out of his league. This worked for the film though, because it made sense with her characters choices.

Get Witness to Murder

Now, Witness to Murder is a whole 'nother class of noir.

Let me say that this film shows why I believe that Barbara Stanwyck embodies 1950's noir.

This is a psychologically tense film that plays with desperation by alienating a otherwise upstanding citizen.

This movie was directed by Roy Rowland for a 1954 release. What was fun was to watch it so closely after Dear Murderer. The contrast between the British film from a decade earlier showed the surprising change in the noir genre over time and across the continents. While the noir elements of shadow and suspense were present in Crabtree's Dear Murderer, the darkness was turned up several notches by Rowland's film from '54. Mainly, the introduction of the asylum scenes demonstrated the loss of innocence that film goers were expecting just 8 years later.

Now not perfect, Witness to Murder had a shabby Nazi theme underlying the main storyline. I cannot know how this felt to an audience that was so much closer to WWII as a current event, but in 2014 it seems forced or even pandering. But much like the allowed "suspended belief" in Dear Murderer, it was a forgiven for "Witness to Murder".