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Click here to return to the main site. DVD Review
Sitting in a bar, Scott Henderson doesn’t feel like being alone. With two tickets for a show, and no one to go with, he approaches a sad looking woman to ask if she would like to accompany him, she agrees. They spend the evening together, they have a drink, get a cab, and annoy one of the acts - as his enigmatic companion is wearing the same hat - and part their ways. When Henderson gets home he discovers that the police are waiting to question him over the death of his wife. With a perfect alibi Henderson retraces his steps, but no one remembers him being with a woman, worst still they had agreed not to exchange names. His only hope of avoiding the electric chair rests with his plucky assistant, Carol Richman... Phantom Lady (B&W - 1944 - 1 hr, 23 min, 04 sec) is a murder mystery, with noirish intentions, directed by Robert Siodmak. Siodmak was a German Jew who left Germany with the rise of Nazism, arriving in America in 1939. In Hollywood, starting with the Phantom Lady, Siodmak would carve out a career making thrillers, reaching the pinnacle of his artistic creativity with The Killers (1946). Phantom Lady is an excellent period film, although Franchot Tone gets top billing as Jack Marlow, this is really a vehicle for Ella Raines as Carol Richman, who joins forces with the cop that arrested her boss Henderson (Alan Curtis). He has no problems with the arrest, but as Henderson sticks to the same unsubstantiated story of the mysterious woman and her distinctive hat, he concludes that either Henderson was an idiot or he was telling the truth. What follows is Richman pluckily retracing her boss’s steps to re-question everyone who saw him with the woman and who should have been able to provide him with an alibi. As she wanders through the seedy part of town, full of bars and jazz musicians the reaction she receives only convinces her more that they are all lying, she just doesn’t know why. As the bodies start to pile up Richman comes close to the unexpected truth of the murder. There are some elements which a modern audience might find risible, the initial set up with Henderson going around town is a bit heavy handed, the mysterious companion behaves in such a way and is noticed to such a degree that she might as well have been wearing a neon sign exclaiming ‘remember me’. So as to blend in with the people she will meet Richman changes her persona, probably her tour de force is when she behaves like a floozy to extract information out of Cliff, a jazz drummer, played by Elisha Cook Jr as a salacious madman. The film is presented with an aspect ratio of 4:3 and a 2.0 mono audio track. The sad thing about this presentation is the quality of the print, which contains so much damage and artefacts that, at times, it’s like the film was shot in a permanent snow storm. A real shame as the film, itself, is pretty good and would have scored an easy seven. 5 Charles Packer Buy this item online
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