Key Witness

Henpecked husband Milton Higby (John Beal) is a nice enough fellow, but he daydreams about his novelty inventions while at work, and never seems to get ahead. When his wife goes out of town, pal Larry (Jimmy Lloyd) seizes the chance to show Milton a good time, introducing him to the race track, and an attractive, appreciative Sally Guthrie (Helen Mowery). A few drinks too many one night, and poor Milton is in a spot... he wakes up in Sally's apartment to find her dead, and the neighbors are pounding on the door. Milton flees for the open road, and when he comes across a dead body, decides to steal the man's identity. Milton's wife and Larry are determined to prove Milton's innocence, but their continued investigations threaten his new life.

This relatively unknown noir film is the definition of a "B" picture, with little-known actors, and efficient (though somewhat absurd) plotting. The twists and turns are break-neck, and fans of the genre will delight in this strange and wonderful example of the post-war film style where fate and chance are in the driver's seat. Newly remastered.

With a little extra effort, Columbia's KEY WITNESS might have been a model B picture. John Beal plays inventor Milton Higby, whose treacherous ex-girlfriend is mysteriously murdered. As the number one suspect, Higby is in the doghouse witht he Law. Fortunately, it seems as though someone witnessed the crime; less fortunately, that someone has apparently disappeared from the face of the earth. Higby also tries to disappear by disguising himself as a bum, which only adds to his already mounting problems. So little critical attention was paid to Columbia's B product in the late 1940s that one reviewer labelled KEY WITNESS costar Trudy Marshall as a "newcomer", even though she'd been in pictures since 1942 (Marshall, incidentally, is the mother of 1970s star Deborah Raffin).