Signpost to Murder ** (1964, Joanne Woodward, Stuart Whitman, Edward Mulhare, Alan Napier) – Classic Movie Review 10,235

Director George Englund’s 1964 film Signpost to Murder stars Stuart Whitman in this hard-to-believe, preposterously twisting B-movie black and white crime mystery thriller relic as Alex Forrester, an escaped wife-murderer psychopath who finds a hiding place with an apparently romantically inclined lonely woman, Molly Thomas (Joanne Woodward).

His doctor, Dr Mark Fleming (Edward Mulhare), has informed him that he will win a retrial by fleeing jail and staying out or prison for a fortnight.

Though screenwriter Sally Benson’s writing is bumpy, and makes a tiny bit of a silk purse out of the sow’s ear of a frankly contrived and quite absurd plot, the acting is powerful enough to make it watchable.

This deservedly forgotten movie just about ends up as passably amusing in a so-fairly-bad-it’s-fairly-good sort of way.

Sadly, it was a sign that Woodward’s star had already waned in 1964 after such a promising start to her career. George Englund directs unimaginatively, keeping it static and stage bound, so obviously based on a theatre play (by Monte Doyle).

Also in the cast are Edward Mulhare, Alan Napier, Murray Matheson, Joyce Worsley, Leslie Denison, Hedley Mattingly and Carol Veazie.

© Derek Winnert 2020 Classic Movie Review 10,235

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