This is a terrifically tense, consistently engaging 50s thriller about a kind, fiercely independent blind telephone exchange operator that unexpectedly finds herself the sole witness to an especially callous murder committed in her very own building! A taut, energetically performed, excitingly plotted cat-and-mouse' thriller, rigorously told, featuring a truly wonderfully spirited performance by Patricia Dainton as the uncommonly plucky blind heroine, and the estimable character actor Nigel Green is on splendidly sinister form as the spectacularly cruel, gimlet-eyed thief who monstrously means to do away with our uncommonly courageous heroine!
'Witness in The Dark' remains an exciting, rewardingly smart, competently made vintage spine-tingler that demonstratively has much to recommend it to avid murder mystery fans; perhaps, being especially worthy to those cineastes with an active interest in lesser known examples of British made, post-war crime-thrillers. Talented Director Wolf Rilla equips himself rather well here, maximizing the creepy, unsettling potential of screenwriters Leigh Vance / John Lemont's quality text, constructing some teeth-rattlingly tense confrontations, and Rilla elicits some exceptionally fine performances from acting maestros Green, Dainton and Madge Ryan. And I feel it would be somewhat remiss of me if I failed to draw attention to the fact that future 'Man About The House' hunk Richard O'Sullivan delivers a personable performance as the fresh-faced lad Don Theobold.
