Signpost to Murder (1964)

the audience applauded

Powerful

Let's be realistic.

This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

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.

****SPOILERS**** Well thought out murder mystery staring the great Stuart "the Mark" Whitman as committed and later escaped mental patient Alex Forrester who was convicted of slitting his wife's's throat and for some strange reason never remembering him doing it. Forrester who's up for a sanity hearing to prove that he's in fact ready to be released from the Milhampton Asylum for the Criminally Insane and be admitted back into society gets the bad news from his court appointed psychiatrist Dr. Mark Fleming, Edward Mlhare,that his chances for being declared sane, by the asylums' broad of psychiatrists, are as likely as a snowball in hell. Very upset in what Dr. Fleming told him Forrester plans to escape and stay on the lamb for two weeks which will qualify, according to an old arcane Victorian law that's still on the books, him to get a new trial and finally prove to the world that he's in fact all right! That all right in the head.Bopping Dr. Fleming, who came to visit him in his cell, over the head when he wasn't looking and assuming his identity Forrester makes his escape and ends up laying low at nearby Molly Thomas', Joanne Woodward, place which he's been casing out for years from his prison cell window. With an all out manhunt under way for Forrester by the police and asylum security guards he makes himself at home at Molly's who, in what a hunk of a man Forrester is, soon ends up falling in love with him. It's later when Molly's husband is found stripped of his clothes and dead as a door nail flouting in the river that it becomes apparent to almost everyone that it was the escaped murdering psycho Alex Forrester who did him in!With the very dangerous and homicidal Forrester in her house Molly's attraction towards him begins to unnerve those of us watching the movie. Not only is Molly not at all afraid of the escaped lunatic but doesn't seem to care at all about the fate of her late husband whom Forrester is now accused of murdering? Sure the guy, Forrester, is cute handsome and good looking in an somewhat rugged and caveman way but he's still an escaped homicidal maniac who can murder her at the drop of a hat! So what's this strange attraction by Molly towards him? Is it some kind of Stockholm Syndrome that Molly's effected by or is it something else. Something far stranger then then the already very strange goings on in the movie! Something that in fact was pre-planned to happen with the by now confused and almost on the brink of a nervous breakdown Alex Forrester being used as a pasty!***SPOILERS*** As we soon find out Forrester was in fact nuts all right but not before he was committed but while he served time at the asylum. It was this sinister plan cooked up by those who planned to drive him insane to use Forrester to get him to take the rap for Mr. Thomas, Molly's husbands, murder for reasons known, that becomes very apparent at the end of the movie, only to themselves. It was Forrester's child-like honesty in trying to figure out if in fact he did or didn't do it, killed both his wife & Mr.Thomas, that got the persons who tried to frame him to slip up and in that end up exposing themselves in the crime, Mr.Thomas' murder, that they tried to hang him with.

Shown August 2011 on TCM's "Joanne Woodward day", this production by Marten Pictures stars Joanne Woodward as "Molly" and Stewart Whitman as "Alex". Woodward had done mostly TV during the 1950s, then started in films. Whitman had been quite the boxer in the service, and had also done a lot of TV in the 1950s, then on to films in the late 1950s/1960s, now getting credited for his roles. "Signpost" is a combination of prison escape, a who-dunnit, and even a bit of a 1970's psychological "thinker film". Pretty well done, its not at all a "murder noir" - its much too bright, blunt, and in- your-face to be a noir. When the escaped prisoner hides out in someone's house, the police keep popping in, sure that the escaped prisoner is still around. There are some surprises, and all the excitement is in the last 20 minutes. Also keep an eye out for Alan Napier (ALFRED, from the Batman TV Show!) Based on a play written by Monte Doyle, this was only the second film directed by George Englund. He seems to have done most of his work as a producer, and worked on the very successful Golden Girls TV show in the 1990s. Not a bad movie, but nothing real special.

I also give this b/w thriller high marks. The story is good and as mentioned in another comment, the set is terrific and the atmosphere of suspense and intrigue sustains your interest. You begin to suspect that something's not quite right, but you're still surprised when it is revealed. One of my favorite actors, whom I had the pleasure of knowing briefly, was Edward Mulhare, and this is one of the few chances he was given in this country to show his appeal. Whitman reaffirms that he was a very underrated actor, despite his Oscar Nomination for "The Mark", having ultimately been relegated to B-Westerns and some unexceptional, though frequent, TV guest appearances. All in all, a very well-spent 74 minutes or so.