THE WITNESS VANISHES

New Zealand Listener, Volume 1, Issue 18, 27 October 1939, Page 33

THE WITNESS VANISHES

(Universal) This is a sound picture about some workmanlike crimes. Otis Garrett has kept it bright throughout, with a murder every so often, two "characters," mystery all the way, and a nice sense of anticipation for audiences warned in advance about each corpse and supposedly in the know about the murderer. But not fully in the know. The owner of a big newspaper is discovered in a sanatorium when Wendy Barrie, looking for her father, narrowly avoids being run over by a Lord in a posh car, but is saved to initiate a train of action which: (1) gives the incarcerated magnate the opportunity to escape; (2) causes the death of the men who stole his newspaper from him; (3) brings a most unusual private investigator down from Glasgow with a foul pipe and a basketful of pigeons; (4) ultimately lands the heroine in the Peer’s arms, when, but for the peculiar good fortune attending film stars, she might well have landed instead on his bumper bar. To say more would spoil the fun, but it may be whispered that each death is announced before it happens by inexplicable insertions in the proof sheets of the Sun, that.the Tribune appears first with the stories of the Sun principals’ unhappy endings, and that Edmund Lowe keeps a wide brow, strong eyebrows, and a firm jaw right to the end of an entertaining film.