malcolmgsw Review of Eyewitness

Eyewitness (1956)

Silly plot and miscast leads deny the film any suspense

[5/10 · 30 January 2012]

This film has 2 major failings.Firstly the silly plot.Pavlow witnesses a cinema manager being murdered ,runs out of the cinema straight into the path of a bus.Taken to hospital in a coma,the 2 robbers decide to go to the hospital to finish her off.Each time Sinden tries to murder Pavlow he is thwarted so that it ends up more like a Carry on.There are so many comings and goings ,particularly with an amorous night nurse that you half expect Hattie Jacques to come thundering down the corridors.Furthermore the 2 robbers,Donald Sinden and Nigel Stock are woefully miscast.Not in a month of Sundays are they believable.Mind you even if the robbers had been played by Stanley Baker and Herbert Lom would the situation have been any more believable.No doubt Rank had them under contract and had to find any vehicle to keep them busy.