Signpost to Murder

1964 "Are we all potential killers?"
Signpost to Murder
6.2| 1h14m| en| More Info
Released: 19 May 1965 Released
Producted By: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
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Budget: 0
Revenue: 0
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Synopsis

An escaped mental patient, reported to be homicidal, hides out in a woman's rural home.

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I-Am-The-Movie-Addict Signpost to Murder (1964) shows how far a story can go and give other minds and viewers a range of perspective of what an accused can be and what an accusation lead to. Starting with the suit-the- bill performance of the Joanne Woodward as Molly Thomas, Stuart Whitman as Alex Forrester & Edward Mulhare as Dr. Mark Fleming, I each has done their needed so nothing there. Now coming to the plot and the execution, I believe such a story needs more maze runs than simple yet obscure endings to be intriguing and adrenaline because of the genre it falls under. The story of the film comes from the play by Monte Doyle of same name, which tells the tale of (Stuart) A man on a run from law after escaping a criminal asylum finds refuge, love, connection and betrayal in the house of a woman (Molly) who has her own ulterior plans to execute.And, how a night of run and chase and lies and personas come out revealing.At last, this is a brief review, i had the chance of watching this film and as usual, being a suspense and murder mystery kind of cult thriller, let it keep it this way.Also, later, this film and the source play, got another adaptation in the forms of-1) A Gujarati play titled Dhummas2) Ittefaq(coincidence) (1969) directed by Yash Chopra starring Rajesh Khanna3) Ittefaq(coincidence) (2017) directed by Abhay Chopra starring Akshaye Khanna & Sidharth MalhotraIf you want to watch this film, then you can check YT and links below,https://youtu.be/I0Yyda3Dg1Q
sol ****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.
ksf-2 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.
pgilvoz 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.