Eyewitness ** (1956, Donald Sinden, Muriel Pavlow, Belinda Lee, Michael Craig, Nigel Stock, Susan Beaumont, David Knight) – Classic Movie Review 11,922

Neville George Clevely Heath (6 June 1917 – 16 October 1946) was an English murderer who killed two young women in the summer of 1946. He was executed in Pentonville Prison, London.

Director Muriel Box’s 1956 British film Eyewitness stars Donald Sinden, Muriel Pavlow, Belinda Lee, Michael Craig, Nigel Stock, Susan Beaumont and David Knight. It is made and released by the Rank Organisation.

Eyewitness is an interesting but so-so, elementary British suspense thriller about two crazed cinema-takings thieves, Wade (Sinden) and Barney (Stock), who try to kill a murder witness, Lucy Church (Pavlow), who had gone to see a film at her local cinema and had witnessed the murder of the cinema manager by the two criminals. They pursue her and she is struck by a bus, and is now immobilised in a hospital’s emergency ward. Wade, watching from the shrubbery near by, decides to murder her. Meanwhile husband Jay Church (Michael Craig) starts a search in the town for her.

If the writing seems weak, Box tries hard to raise the level of the tension, and the acting is above par, with Sinden working well in a rare non-comic role as the nastier half of the evil duo, and Stock excellent as his nicer partner, a deaf safe-breaker, along with Ada Reeve scoring as Mrs Hudson.

Playing a cold-blooded murderer is a big change for Sinden, who was up for the challenge after doing extensive research and deciding to base his performance on Neville Heath, an English murderer who killed two young women in the summer of 1946. Belinda Lee on the other hand found herself typecast in one of several so-called sensible girl roles she played for Rank.

Journalist Godfrey Winn appears as himself.

Also in the pleasurable cast are Ada Reeve, Avice Landone, Richard Wattis, George Woodbridge, Leslie Dwyer, Allan Cuthbertson, John Stuart, Nicholas Parsons, Charles Victor, Harry Towb and Lionel Jeffries.

Now this might be controversial. It certainly does not seem very nice. Michael Craig later wrote that Muriel Box’s ‘skills as a director were confined to the ability to say Action! and Cut! She was a very nice lady, a bit like a deputy headmistress .But her main concern while filming seemed to be how the set was dressed.’

Sinden later wrote that Eyewitness ‘is now shown on television more frequently than any of my other films, but ironically when it first opened, to rather bad press reviews, commercial television was in its infancy and yet to make the impact that was to change the lives of everyone in the country, not the least those in the Rank Organisation.’

The film was shot in mid 1956 and released on 14 August 1956.

Muriel Box’s films: The Lost People (1949), The Happy Family (1952), Street Corner (1953), The Beachcomber (1954), To Dorothy a Son (1954), Simon and Laura (1955), Eyewitness (1956), The Passionate Stranger (1957), The Truth About Women (1957), This Other Eden (1959), Subway in the Sky (1959), Too Young to Love (1959), The Piper’s Tune (1962) and Rattle of a Simple Man (1964).

The cast are Donald Sinden as Wade, Muriel Pavlow as Lucy Church, Belinda Lee as Nurse Penny Marston, Michael Craig as Jay Church, Nigel Stock as Barney, Susan Beaumont as Probationary Nurse, David Knight as Mike, Ada Reeve as Mrs Hudson, Avice Landone as Night sister, Richard Wattis as Anaesthetist, George Woodbridge as Hospital security man, Gillian Harrison as Molly, Nicholas Parsons as House Surgeon, Leslie Dwyer as expectant father Henry Cannon, Allan Cuthbertson as Detective Inspector, Thomas Heathcote as Tom the Barman, Anna Turner as Mrs Hays, Anthony Oliver as Podge, Hal Osmond as Hospital Doorman, Godfrey Winn as himself, Charles Victor, Harry Towb and Lionel Jeffries.

© Derek Winnert 2022 Classic Movie Review 11,922

Check out more reviews on http://derekwinnert.com