"Signpost to Murder", which has been released on DVD by the Warner Archive, is the kind of modest production that major studios used to routinely produce in the hopes of generating some equally modest profits in quick playoff situations. The MGM production was made in 1964 and ostensibly takes place in England. However, the British countryside is represented by small village set shot on a Hollywood back lot, along with one of the most unconvincing matte paintings ever created. Fortunately the film is a claustrophobic affair that all too obviously betrays its origins as a stage play, thus relegating most of the action to an elegant country home that adjoins a giant water mill wheel. The film opens in an asylum for the insane where we find the protagonist, Alex Forrester (Stuart Whitman), as a reformed inmate who had been incarcerated for the murder of his wife. His progressive psychiatrist, Dr. Mark Fleming (Edward Mulhare), makes a plea for his patient's release back into general society but the request is refused. Driven to severe despair, Alex clunks the doctor over the head and uses his clothing as a disguise to escape the prison. With a manhunt under way, he makes tracks for the mill house residence, which he has long admired from years of gazing out of his cell window. Once there, he secretly enters the home just in time to see it's sole resident, Molly Thomas (Joanne Woodward), sauntering around the home modeling bathing suits for a forthcoming village fashion show. (Who said timing isn't everything?) Alex gets a hold of a shotgun and forces Molly to tell visiting police detectives that all is well. In reality, she is awaiting the return of her husband from a business trip to Amsterdam- a fact that unnerves Alex. Because of the film's abbreviated running time (a scant 78 minutes), events move along at an improbably fast pace. In the course of the evening, Molly ends up using Alex as her own de facto shrink and confides that she isn't overjoyed at the prospect of seeing her husband. Turns out he's been cold and inattentive. For his part, Alex confides that he isn't even sure that he ever murdered his wife due to the shock of seeing her body in a bathtub. From that point, his memory of the evening in question blanked out. Before long, these two lonely people are making goo-goo eyes at each other and there is an implication things go even further. Molly believes in the innocence of her "house guest" and continues to hide his presence from all visitors, of which there are quite a few. In fact, for a remote country house, the place seems to have more people ambling about than Victoria Station. Events go into overdrive, however, when Alex believes he sees the body of Molly's husband revolving on the giant water wheel. Naturally, when she goes to look, the body isn't there. She assures him that it was all in his imagination, but Alex begins to doubt his own sanity and wonders if he may have murdered yet again. When Molly's husband does turn up dead, the story becomes one of those typical British drawing room mysteries in which all the principals gather in the living room while some red herrings are dismissed and some astonishing facts are revealed.
Although the production boasts some genuine and fine British character actors (Mulhare and Alan Napier among them), the film has an odd feel to it because the two leads are so obviously American. Whitman initially injects his manner of speech with a half-hearted attempt at a British accent, but it inexplicably disappears. Woodward doesn't even go that far. A simple line of dialogue explaining that she is an American would have helped, but lacking that, one can't help but be distracted by her "California Girl" mannerisms and speech. Woodward's presence in this low budget black and white production is a bigger mystery than the murder plot, given the fact that she was already a major star and an Oscar winner by this point in her career. Yet, she and Whitman do have considerable chemistry together- and if the prospect of a woman falling for a presumably psychopathic killer sounds far-fetched, just consider that major jail break in New York state in which a female prison employee helped two murderers escape because she thought they were in love with her. Under the capable direction of George Englund, the film moves at a brisk pace and is a pleasing time-killer. I suspected one major plot device from the beginning but I do admit that a second one came as a bit of a surprise. As a trivia note, fans of 1960s spy movies will probably recognize the mill house set as the exact location of the opening sequence of the "Man From U.N.C.L.E." feature film "To Trap a Spy".
The Warner Archive DVD features an original trailer in which the narrator refers to the star as "Joan" Woodward!