witness to murder be one of the great unsung noir gem from the 1950s . sharply direct by roy rowland and brilliantly photograph by john alton and it be criminal that this terrific film have yet to see a dvd release . barbara stanwyck star a a woman who inadvertently witness a murder one night when and awaken by a thunderclap and go to her window and see her neighbor in an apartment across the street ( george sander ) strangle a woman to death . shake but collect and she phone the police who respond to the call but be unable to detect anything out of the ordinary when they arrive to question sander . the detective ( gary merrill and jesse white ) leave sander apartment convince that stanwyck imagine the killing . determine to prove the cop wrong and she begin to relentlessly hound sander who and it turn out and be a former nazi and author of book promote the ideology of the third reich . sander and a cunning adversary and initiate a retaliatory strike against stanwyck which and before long land her in a mental asylum . but will she be able to convince detective gary merrill ( who by now have fall in love with her ) that her assertion be and after all and true . darkly suspenseful and albeit preposterously improbable and witness to murder follow a similar thread a rear window and release the very same year . the most significant difference be in the hitchcock film james stewart be a consciously willing voyeur and drawn into a secret world of spy bring on by his own inertia while stanwyck succumbs to the ramification of her voyeurism purely by an accident of nature and the victim of circumstance far beyond her control and place it much more squarely in the domain of film noir than it good know counterpart . highly recommended .