Phantom Lady
                                                                  
Director: Stuart Rosenberg
Year: 1944
Rating: 7.0
Based on a Cornell Woolrich novel from 1942 it was adapted by Universal and the directing reins were handed over to Robert Siodmak. Siodmak was yet another Jewish emigree who had left Germany when Hitler came to power. First to France where he directed a few films and then to Hollywood. This was the film that established him in Hollywood and led to his directing a number of crime and suspense films - The Killers, The Dark Mirror. This is an odd film with an off-beat structure. The top-billed actor doesn't make an appearance until the 45-minute mark and the initial male protagonist that you assume will be the main character gets sidelined 20-minutes in and basically leaves the film. It then falls onto a female character to carry the narrative. Woolrich often made women the center of his novels and over 300 short stories (The Bride Wore Black) - as the killer or victim - in the book she never gives up and is relentless in running down potential leads and willingly puts herself in danger.



The script is fairly trite with more holes than a moth-eaten coat - and though this is often classified as "noir", the plot is your basic crime story. There is no femme fatale and really no mystery as to the killer or whether the accused man is innocent - these are spoon fed to us like cream-filled cupcakes. It is Siodmak's cinematography that turns it into a noir film. Dark, shadowy, empty streets, long shots with elements of his German black and white expressionism. There are shots and scenes that make the little noir toes on your feet curl up with happiness.  He takes a mundane story and turns it on its head. It can't escape the plot but it will leave a lasting impression. Film noir was still in its formative years with The Maltese Falcon, Stranger on the Third Floor coming before it and Murder My Sweet being released in the same year, but this clearly had an influence on how noir was to look in the films to come.



Scott Henderson (Alan Curtis) has a fight with his wife and goes to have a drink in a bar. He has two tickets to a show and when he sees a single woman at the end of the bar, he convinces her to go with him. He is not a great reader of the room. She is obviously miserable, and he keeps at her until she agrees. This fault is made clearer later on when it is obvious that he never realized that his secretary loves him. The woman (Fay Helm) has a crazy high hat with a big feather on top. Doesn't even take it off when she sits down. The singer on stage (Aurora Miranda) is also wearing the same hat and comes across as a Carmen Miranda type - not too surprising since Aurora was her real-life sister. On the stage is also a drummer played by Mr. Noir Elisha Cook Jr. who keeps staring and grinning at the lady. After the show, Henderson takes her back to a bar and never gets her name. When he gets home the cops are waiting for him. His wife has been murdered. With his necktie.



Which seems to be all the jury needs to find him guilty. He can't find the woman to corroborate his alibi. Kind of stupid since the bartender and taxi driver can but they don't remember the woman. He must have had a lousy lawyer. His secretary Carol who has secretly loved him decides to find the woman before he is executed. She doesn't have long. She is played by the lovely Ella Raines who had been signed to an exclusive contract by Howard Hughes and Charles Boyer. This is her film.



First, she obsessively shows up at the bar and stares at the bartender driving him crazy and Siodmak pulls the camera far back looking down the bar where she appears to be an avenging angel. Just staring. But the stand-out scene that is remarkable and surprisingly got thru the censors is when she dresses up as a 10-cent a dance tart and gives Cook the look of sex. He takes her to this very small after-hours jazz club where he beats his drum like a man coked up to his temple and thinking he has a sure thing. His eyes are flying around like banshees, his hands a blur, his smile in a fixed maniacal grin of victory.  It is an astonishing few minutes of film with the camera going haywire jumping around like a claustrophobic madman. Then back to his place where she sits on his lap and tries to coax the truth out of him. The top-billed actor Franchot Tone finally shows up at the half-way mark. He is a good friend of Henderson but has been out of the country. He offers to help. Thomas Gomez plays the cop who investigated the case but feels he missed something and won't let it go. Woolrich did not work on the film script. He had been in Hollywood years earlier and hated it and came home to NYC and his mother. They make a few changes from the book which is pretty good though I think a little long-winded. In the book, Henderson and Carol are already lovers when his wife is murdered but I would guess this would not pass the morality police at the time. And the ending is very different and it is too bad they didn't go with the book. She puts her life on the line to save the man she loves. The best part of the book is her scene with the drummer - incredibly intense and nightmarish. Woolrich throws in a few more murders as well.