This week on The Movie Gourmet – it’s pretty much all about Cinequest, especially The Best of Cinequest, with all my reviews and features linked on my Cinequest 2025 page. At least six more reviews and features will be coming out soon. But NEXT week, I’ll be back with reviews of Mickey 17, Chaos: The Manson Murders and Bob Trevino Likes It.
And then I’ll be back in festival mode, covering the SLO Film Fest and SFFILM.
Reminder – all of the big 2024 movies, including the big Oscar winner, Anora, are available to watch at home. They’re all under $6, except for The Brutalist ($20) and A Complete Unknown ($25).
CURRENT MOVIES
- Anora: human spirit vs the oligarchs. In theaters and Amazon, AppleTV, YouTube, Fandango.
- A Complete Unknown: a genius and his time. In theaters and Amazon, AppleTV, YouTube, Fandango.
- The Last Showgirl: desperation amid the rhinestones. Amazon, AppleTV, YouTube, Fandango.
- The Brutalist: buffeted by fate, can his soul survive? In theaters and Amazon, AppleTV, YouTube, Fandango..
- Hard Truths: trapped inside her own rage. Amazon, AppleTV, YouTube, Fandango..
- The Room Next Door: Tilda and Julianne, life and death. Amazon, AppleTV, YouTube, Fandango.
- Conclave: explosive secrets? in the Vatican?. Amazon, AppleTV, YouTube, Fandango.
- A Real Pain: whose pain is it? Amazon, AppleTV, YouTube, Fandango.
- Sly Lives! (aka The Burden of Black Genius): rise, fall and legacy of a groundbreaking prodigy. Hulu.
- Wallace and Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl: another smart and charming romp. Netflix.
- Emilia Pérez: four women yearn amid Mexico’s drug violence. Netflix.
ON TV
On March 20, Turner Classic Movies is airing the gripping and hard-to-find Witness to Murder. Richter (George Sanders) and Cheryl (Barbara Stanwyck) live in neighboring apartments. Cheryl believes she has seen Richter murder someone, but Richter’s clever and ruthless duplicity makes it appear that Cheryl is just crazy. Will Police Lt. Larry Mathews (Gary Merrill) believe her before Richter can make Cheryl his second victim?
What a wowzer first scene! Witness to Murder opens with a gripping scene that economically sets up the plot. “Operator, get me the police! Hurry!” We know immediately and certainly that Richter really committed the murder and that Cheryl really saw it. Throughout the movie, the audience knows this and Richter knows this, but no one else does, and neither does Cheryl herself during segments of the story.
Cheryl reports the murder and the police (Larry Mathews and sidekick) respond. However, Richter has concealed the crime so well that cops can’t find any evidence that a crime occurred. Could Cheryl have been mistaken? Or dreamed it? or made it up? or hallucinated? Is she neurotic and mildly hysteric or is she psychotic and delusional?
Larry develops an immediate attraction to Cheryl, and, despite her apparent emotional instability, begins a courtship.
Richter (malevolently) and Larry (paternalistically) begin gaslighting Cheryl, trying to convince her that she really only imagined what she saw – trying to convince her that what seemed so real, was not. Cheryl starts doubting herself.
Of course, Richter knows that he committed the murder, and he knows that Cheryl knows. To get her out of the way, he schemes to have her seen as crazed stalker. His scheme drives her to an outburst that serves as a pretext for locking her up in a psychiatric facility (with an interview by an oddly brusque shrink). Richter’s attempts to murder Cheryl continue right into Witness to Murder’s Perils-of-Pauline ending.
See my complete post on Witness to Murder, for more on the filmmakers and supporting cast. It’s one of my Overlooked Noir.
On this weekend’s TCM broadcast of Witness to Murder, film historian Eddie Muller – the Czar of Noir – will provide his always insightful intro and outro. Witness to Murder is not available to stream; I own the DVD. Be sure to DVR it when it airs on Turner Classic Movies.
