Forgotten Film: Phantom Lady (1944)

Cornell Woolrich's Phantom Lady is an engaging mystery film, just not a great one.

By Scott A. Cupp

This is the 155th in my series of Forgotten, Obscure or Neglected Films

I really love the novels of Cornell Woolrich, whether writing under that name or William Irish or George Hopley. For a while, I had a very nice collection of first editions of his work including a beautiful copy of Phantom Lady. But I took the money and ran a long time ago.

Woolrich was a master of suspense and tension, particularly in his novels, though some also comes through in his films. Check out my review of Jacques Tourneau’s The Leopard Man which was based on Woolrich’s novel Black Alibi. It features one of the most terrifying scenes ever put on screen and that scene is straight out of the novel.

But, let’s talk about Phantom Lady. Scott Henderson (Alan Curtis) is a successful engineer in a bad marriage. On his anniversary he and his wife have a fight and he storms out of the apartment. He goes to a local bar where he meets a lonely woman with a gaudy hat. They make small talk and he invites her to go to a show. When he asks her name, she demurs, saying that they should enjoy the night with no names and no history. They take a cab to the show where a drummer tries to get her attention and the headliner Monteiro (Aurora) is seen wearing the same hat. Monteiro is obviously furious.

Henderson returns home to find police Inspector Burgess (Thomas Gomez) waiting. Henderson’s wife has been strangled with one of his neckties. Henderson isn’t worried about being arrested for the crime because he didn’t do it. But when the police question the bartender (Andrew Tombes) he says Henderson was alone. So does the cab driver. And when Monteiro is questioned, she remembers nothing about the Henderson’s companion and the hat the argued about isn’t even among her costumes.

Henderson finds himself on trial for murder and, with no alibi, he is quickly convicted and sentenced to die. The only one convinced he’s innocent is his secretary, Carol “Kansas” Richmond (Ella Raines), who is in love with him. She cannot find any other way to help him, so she shadows the bartender. When he makes a casual slip about being paid, he tries to attack her and ends up getting killed in traffic. At that point, Carol suspects she is on the right trail.

She begins to track down the drummer (Elisha Cook, Jr.) who admits that he was paid $500 to forget what he saw. Carol calls Burgess, but by the time he gets there the drummer is dead. At this point, the film gives away the identity of the real killer, something which was not disclosed in the book until the very end.

Scott’s friend, Jack Marlow (Franchot Tone) has been in South America and when he returns he agrees to help Carol solve Scott’s problem. Together they find the Phantom Lady and the hat, but the murderer is still about and Carol is in deep trouble.

This was a good film, just not the great film which might have been made from the book. In glorious black and white, it has many of the features of a good noir film but somehow falls flat. The tense moments just don’t quite come across that way, until the point at which Carol confronts the killer. Part of the problem is the source material. Woolrich novels sometimes rely on coincidence and, as in this case, you have to buy that people are willing to let a man die after being paid to forget something. Somehow I tend to have a better opinion of people than that. Of the four, one should have broken down.

When reading the books, the breakneck pacing gets you through. With the film, that pacing isn’t there and the flaws emerge.

I still like this film, though, and I still love the work of Woolrich. I’m hoping you do to. TCM runs this film fairly regularly and you should check it out when you can. It’s not Out of the Past or Double Indemnity, but it’s still worthwhile.

Series organizer Todd Mason hosts more Tuesday Forgotten Film reviews at his own blog and posts a complete list of participating blogs.

 

Forgotten Films: The Leopard Man (1943)

Val Lewton's The Leopard Man is all about the noir scares.

By Scott A. Cupp

This is the 136th my series of Forgotten, Obscure or Neglected Films

The other day Sanford Allen, the owner of this blog, and I were talking about last week’s film The Robot Vs. the Aztec Mummy. Sanford is fond of the Aztec Mummy films, particularly Wrestling Women Vs. the Aztec Mummy. The conversation turned to other films and we got talking about Val Lewton and his time in Hollywood. Sanford had just re-watched I Walked with a Zombie. I told him that I thought I had reviewed once before. I just checked and I have not, so beware.

One of my favorites from Lewton was one he produced and oversaw. The Leopard Man was directed by Jacques Tourneur, who lensed several films with Lewton producing.

And this one is amazing.

This is your early noir film on steroids. It is based on Black Alibi, a novel by one my favorites, Cornell Woolrich. Short, moody, black, white, shadows and weird sounds. The movie is set in a sleepy New Mexico town that faces terror when Jerry Manning (Dennis O’Keefe) obtains a black leopard for his client/girlfriend Kiki (Jean Brooks) to use in her nightclub singing act to upstage her club rival Clo-Clo (a Latin dancer played by the singular-named Margo). The leopard escapes when Clo-Clo frightens it with her castanets.

The escape makes the news and people are slightly worried. None more so than Theresa Delgado (Margaret Landry), a young teenage girl sent out on an errand at night by her mother. In one of the most chilling scenes ever put in black and white, Teresa tries to escape the leopard while her mother disbelieves her and refuses to open the door. When the screams turn very real and the leopard growls, Mama finds the door is tough to open. Before she gets it open, the sounds have stopped and blood begins to seep under the door. Little is seen, but the mind fills in all the blanks most vividly. Everybody who sees this film remembers that scene.

Soon other young women are killed – Consuela waiting for her boyfriend in a cemetery that has been locked. (Old joke: You know why they lock cemeteries? People are dying to get in.) There are others too.

The owner of the leopard, Charlie How-Come (actor and later director Abner Biberman), wants his cat back or for Jerry to pay him money. Jerry feels responsible for everything, as does Kiki. A Posse is organized to try to find the leopard, but they have no success.

But Jerry keeps thinking about the deaths. Something doesn’t seem right. A local expert, Dr. Galbraith (James Bell), proves to be a good sounding board. The leopard seems to be hunting, rather than hiding, as Charlie says a normal cat would be doing. Perhaps this isn’t a leopard at all, but rather a man intent on killing young women.

The trailer and poster straight up tell you there’s a man involved. He is a serial killer, though that term had not even been conceived in 1943.

The film is somewhat straightforward. There are no major twists, but the direction and the actors make it wonderful. One of my favorites is the delightful fortune teller, Maria (Isabel Jewell), who tells Clo-Clo’s fortune. Clo-Clo keeps cutting the cards and the ace of spades continues to turn up. Not a good card in fortune telling, apparently. Maria keeps saying that she’s making mistakes.

Isabel Jewell reminded me a lot of Gloria Grahame in both looks and attitude. Although Gloria didn’t make her Hollywood debut until the following year. Jewell had a long career in Hollywood including parts in some great films, like Gone with the Wind, Lost Horizon and High Sierra. She ended up being typecast into smaller roles as gang molls, prostitutes and dumb blondes. Eventually she ran afoul of the law with bad checks and drunk driving.

The music for the film was by the great Roy Webb who had done Cat People for Lewton and would soon do Out of the Past and The Body Snatcher. His work alone was worth the price of admission.

This film is part of the Val Lewton box set which includes Cat People, Return of the Cat People and I Walked with a Zombie, among others. It is well worth searching out, either as a full set or for the individual film. Scott says Check this out, but stay out of the shadows.

Series organizer Todd Mason hosts more Tuesday Forgotten Film reviews at his own blog and posts a complete list of participating blogs.