Shadow on the Wall
Directed by Pat JacksonDavid Starrling, a wealthy and morally careless man, is in the process of leaving his wife Celia for her sister Dell Faring when Celia confronts Dell and a struggle ends in Celia's death. Dell escapes, and David – arriving moments later – is charged with the murder. His young daughter Susan, who witnessed the killing, retreats into a trauma-induced amnesia, unable or unwilling to name what she saw. The child is placed under psychiatric care, and the investigation stalls on the silence of its only witness.
Dr. Caroline Canford, the psychiatrist assigned to Susan, works patiently to draw out whatever the girl's mind has sealed away. Dell, meanwhile, moves through the edges of the case with calculated composure, her guilt protected by Susan's amnesia and the law's fixation on David. The triangle of desire and betrayal that produced the murder continues to press against the surface of the investigation, as those with something to hide work to ensure Susan's memory stays buried.
Shadow on the Wall belongs to a minor but persistent strain of postwar noir in which the threat is domestic and the darkest rooms are not alleyways but parlors and consulting offices. The film draws its tension from the intersection of psychiatric procedure and criminal concealment, using a child's fragile psychology as both the mechanism of suspense and the moral center of the story.
