Beaver Cleaver Goes Catatonic!

 

Pretty much the first thing that happens in the 1957 film noir Shadows on the Window is a small boy (Jerry Mathers) who witnesses a murder while looking through the window of a house.

The murdered man was employing the boy's mom (Linda Atlas, played by Betty Garrett) as a temp stenographer for the day. So when the boy runs off and then is found by two truckers wandering in a daze down the road, no one knows for sure where he came from. In the meantime, the three killers (who had come to the home to rob the man's safe) are now holding Linda hostage and debating whether they need to kill her as well. The bad guys are in over their heads and simply don't know what their next move should be.

It's a great set-up for a legitimately suspenseful movie. The boy's dad (Tony Atlas, played by Phil Carey) is a cop. When the boy ends up at the police station, another cop recognizes him. But the boy is zoned out, unable to answer any questions, even from his dad. It's soon apparent that Linda is in some sort of trouble. Or dead. Tony knows she was taking temp work, but the two are estranged and he doesn't know where she was going that day.

There's a small glitch in the logic of the movie as the cops investigate. The truckers had taken the boy to their dispatch office, from where the police were called. But as Tony and the other cops investigate, they have to start from scratch, with no idea who originally found the kid. Apparently, no one bothered asking the truckers who they were when they turned him over to the cops? That seems unlikely. 

Despite this, the investigation progresses in a logical and suspenseful fashion. The cops follow leads through the night and into the next morning. 

In the meantime, Linda is doing what she can to play up to the one bad guy who seems reluctant to commit another murder. She even manages to vamp another of the guys and create an opportunity to knock him on the head and make a break for it. But she's caught and it seems more and more likely she'll be killed.

She's also, of course, worried sick about her son. From her point-of-view, he's simply disappeared.

The interconnected story threads involving Tony (trying to find Linda) and Linda (trying to stay alive) intertwine nicely and come together at the end for a strong conclusion. Shadows on the Window is worth 73 minutes of your time.