PHANTOM LADY

After a fight with his wife sends him out on the town and into the arms of a mystery woman, the fate of Manhattan engineer Scott Henderson (Alan Curtis) is seemingly sealed when he returns to find his wife murdered and himself the primary suspect. Imprisoned and without a solid alibi, the case is taken up by Henderson’s loyal secretary Carol, a.k.a. ‘Kansas’ (Ella Raines), whose quest to prove her boss’ innocence takes her through a labyrinthine underground of shadowy figures where all is not as it seems. Robert Siodmak's PHANTOM LADY takes one of the great noir premises and drives it directly into a fog bank of obsession, anxiety, and wartime New York weirdness.

Much like his fellow European exiles, Fritz Lang and Otto Preminger, Siodmak’s influential style would have a lasting impact on Hollywood filmmaking, of which PHANTOM LADY is among his best, and would define Siodmak’s career as a visionary and signature artist of film noir. It also contains one of the strangest sequences in 1940s studio filmmaking: an extended jazz performance that escalates from nightclub entertainment into what feels like a psychological breakdown accompanied by Elisha Cook Jr. drums.

“A cavalcade of arresting shots, mixing oneiric shadows and plunging sets (not always in deep focus, adding to the haze) for its waking nightmare. Figures disappear and reappear just when they are needed or not needed most, and death hangs in the air like a chill. Stunning.” - Jake Cole