Signpost to Murder

I would recommend this thriller/film-noir to anyone who enjoys a diabolical murder mystery film. The three main actors/actress were absolutely outstanding in their respective roles. Stuart Whitman plays a convicted murder named Alex Forrester who is placed in a prison for the mentally insane, accused of murdering his wife. His only friend in the world is the psychiatrist who is treating him in prison, a man named Dr. Mark Fleming played by Edward Mulhare. After Alex's release is once again suspended by a panel of doctors and a parole board, Alex takes the first opportunity to make a daring escape to the nearby farm house he has admired for the past five (5) years from his jail cell.

The farm house is owned by a lovely young woman (and her absent husband) named Molly Thomas played by Joanne Woodward. Alex overtakes Molly by gunpoint and convinces her to hide him out just for two weeks which is the exact time required to allow him to request a retrial according to his psychiatrist, Dr. Mark Fleming.

This is an excellent cat and mouse game, but the plot is thicker than a London fog, and Molly Thomas's luxurious farm house is the perfect hiding spot for the three main characters to eventually show who is the cat and who is the mouse.

It is a captivating black and white film-noir which I have placed on my Christmas wish list to obtain a copy of the film, for my personal film library. I wish the Criterion Collection would release a 4K Blu Ray version as it is most deserving of being included in this elite collection.

Joanne Woodward, Stuart Whitman, and Edward Mulhare star in "Signpost to Murder," a 1964 film directed by George Englund. This almost seemed to me to be a television production, as the scenes seemed to be set up for commercials.

Whitman plays a convicted murderer, in prison for ten years. He has been working with a psychiatrist (Mulhare). He escapes when the board refuses his release and hides out in a house owned by Woodward and her husband. Woodward's husband is expected home; in the meantime, prison officials and police are combing the area for the convict.

Very good story, fabulous set, somewhat slow-moving in the British fashion (since it is British) but with an exciting ending. The excellent Woodward is quite glamorous here, and Whitman does a terrific job. Whitman was one of those actors who, had he come along ten years earlier, would have been part of a studio build-up and had a much better career in films. Like many of his contemporaries, he wound up doing a lot of television.

Recommended if you're a mystery/suspense lover.

Many great thrillers are based on stage plays. Just think about Alfred Hitchcock's "Dial M for Murder" or "Rope", or "Wait Until Dark", or "The Bad Seed". This "Signpost to Murder" is also an adaptation of a play, and it's clearly noticeable by the limited number of sets and the extended dialogues. The plot is quite original and compelling, but the film-version badly suffers from a lack of action and spectacle.

Alex Forrester is desperate when his request for parole unexpectedly gets rejected. After serving several years in a mental asylum, and displaying excellent behavior, Alex and his loyal friend and physician Dr. Fleming were convinced he would get released. So, instead, Alex violently escapes and seeks shelter in the house with the millwheel that he could see from his cell. He finds the lady of the house all by herself, but she - Molly Thomas - may not be as defenseless as she looks.

Great performances, moody shots of the ominous house with the millwheel, and a downright fabulous & unforeseeable end-twist cannot prevent "Signpost to Murder" to be an overall disappointment. There is just too much talking, and too little action.

This is based on a play and it shows :all the action tales place in the heroine's house , in a stifling atmosphere in which the ceaseless turning wheel lapping creates a tension ; it is sometimes slow-moving ,but a little humour gets into the lugubrious atmosphere (the gossip woman who phones ; the vicar and the incongruous little help he provides ) and acting is excellent : you can't be wrong with Joanne Woodward ,a character actress who portrays a hostage ,a victim of an escapee from a mental hospital ; little by little ,doubt creeps into one's mind : is she so innocent?Stuart Whitman is credible as well as this lunatic who's seeing things (a dead body on the wheel)and who perhaps might not be really guilty :the circumstances of the crime which sent it to the asylum remain mysterious.

There's of course an unexpected ending ; although it's not as strong as such "in camera " thrillers as Levin/Lumet 's "death trap" , it is an unqualified must for people fond of suspense films.

This film is a bit too neat for its own good. After a plausible set-up with Stuart Whitman as a murderer in an insane asylum, and hiding out after escaping to the creepy residence of Joanne Woodward, who lives nearby in a quaint English village. The film escalates into a romance between the two, as it revealed that Woodward's marriage is not quite up to par.

I could have bought the fact that Whitman was unjustly charged with the murder that had put him away. I might have even bought the premise that a love-starved woman would hide him for the two weeks he needed to get a new trial (his parole had been denied). But when the corpse of Woodward's husband is found on the water ferris wheel of death, the plot moves from believable to much less believable, and the ending, as far as I was concerned, was contrived, and not believable at all.

A little misdirection and one red herring is fairly acceptable for a mystery, but gross misdirection (by the writer) and two red herrings is bound to give you indigestion. Worth watching to see Woodward and Stuart, but not very believable.