Another Man's Poison (1951)

This noir introduces us to Bette Davis' crime novelist, living in a gothic mansion by a windswept moor, who, we discover from the opening scene's whispered telephone box conversation, is having an affair, and from this strong thriller set-up, the movie proceeds as if trying to check off every thriller box imaginable - a dead body in a study,  an imposter and a fake marriage, a bank robbery, a criminal on the loose, not to mention animal murder and even My Cousin Rachel-style vehicle tampering - and more and more, until it runs wildly away with itself, though thankfully Davis seems aware of the absurdity and plays it for all it is worth.

★★★☆☆

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Phone Call From A Stranger (1952)

We spend so much time with "The Four Musketeers", a self-named group of not terribly interesting - and in the case of Keenan Wynn's Eddie Hoke, a novelty salesman, downright annoying - plane passengers thrown together by chance, that it comes as a bit of a shock when the plane crashes, killing three and leaving the fourth, Gary Merrill's dullard lawyer, to take up the others' unfinished business - unfinished and very melodramatic business involving guilt, shame, love, betrayal and other overwrought stuff that only a movie-final appearance by Bette Davis can neatly, patly resolve.

★★★☆☆

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Witness To Murder (1954)

Rather optimistically compared to Alfred Hitchcock's Rear Window, this noir has Barbara Stanwyck playing a woman who witnesses a murder in the apartment across from hers and although we are supposed to be thrilled as she contends with the killer, an ex-Nazi and wily gaslighter, he proves not nearly as diabolical as Gary Merrill's infuriatingly defeatist detective.

★★★☆☆

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