Signpost to Murder

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.