Phantom Lady
Written by Bernard C. Schoenfeld
Directed by Robert Siodmak
U.S.A., 1944
Scott Henderson (Alan Curtis), owner of a small engineering company in New York, is already experiencing a poor evening as he enters a neighborhood bar and grill. His luck with an unknown woman has proven sour, the latter having stood him up. Stuck with a pair of tickets to a musical, he invites a lavishly dressed if visibly unhappy looking stranger (Fay Helm) to accompany him. The evening goes well enough although Scott’s lady companion, reserved and nervous, never shares her name before leaving for the night. Scott returns home to find the police, led by inspector Burgess (Thomas Gomez), who accuse him of murdering his wife, whose body lies stone cold in the bedroom. Unable to produce his strongest alibi, the ‘phantom lady’ with the exotic hat, it is up to Scott’s personal assistant Carol ‘Kansas’ Richman (Ella Raines) to step up and investigate the matter before Scott is sent to the chair. With or without police support, Kansas leaves no stone unturned in the search for the truth.
It was a long time coming, but TCM (Turner Classic Movies) finally released a region 1 DVD of Phantom Lady back in July of 2013. A blu-ray would have been nice as well, but at least this was a start. For the longest time the movie was only available in a region 2 French Robert Siodmak set for which fans had to shill out considerable doe, not to mention equip themselves with region-free players, which don’t come cheap either. Truth be told, Siodmak’s picture is not cited nearly as often as the classics his contemporaries produced yet re-watching it again for the first time in a few years ts qualities are absolutely apparent. From the diversity of the cast to the lighting techniques to the smallest, suggestive beats, Phantom Lady is among the best movies of its class, arresting the viewer’s attention from the first minutes and holding tight until the final frame. It is an example of great filmmaking of the era and, to make matters more interesting, its protagonist is a woman.
What has to matter more than anything is story, the journey the heroine embarks on to achieve her goal. Phantom Lady not only sports a very compelling one but presents it with a refreshing twist or two. For starters, the opening 25 minutes give no indication that Kansas, not Scott, is to fill the shoes of the protagonist. All the attention is centered on Scott and his valiant attempt to make the best of his evening and that of the phantom lady. From there Scott is targeted as the prime suspect in a murder case and takes the police to visit all the places and people he and the mysterious woman saw the prior evening. Only after all of this, once Scott is wrongfully convicted and sent to the slammer does the focus shift to Kansas. It makes for an unusual way to get the ball rolling, as if director Siodmak sets a tempo early on, makes an abrupt halt, chooses another pawn to move around and continues from there. The really neat aspect to the first half hour is that Alan Curtis is given enough time to share and develop his character’s personality through an empathy deserving performance. Scott is a flawed man, yes, but he is no outlaw and does in fact deserve a better fate.
Once Ella Raines takes over, Phantom Lady kicks things up an extra notch by having Kansas show exceptional guts in by venturing headstrong into the mystery where danger lurks. In order to make up for the fact that she is no detective nor is she in any way an intimidating presence, Kansas demonstrates spunk, gumption and a whole lot of heart. There is obviously a cover-up of some sort with several challenges laid out and about to dissuade her from pursuing her self-appointed mission but she never quits, even after a near death experience. Raines is extremely likable as an actress, lending Kansas more strength of character than meets the eye, also making it incredibly easy for the viewer to cheer Kansas on. She invests a lot of emotion in the role as well, making the scenes in which she shows temporary grief at the sign of roadblocks initially appearing to put her quest on ice all the more touching.
There are so many signature sequences spread throughout Phantom Lady, some of which emphasize the story’s seedy nature, others that strongly allude to the sexual underpinnings pulsating in the wilder corners of the city and others still that maintain the glimmer of hope Kansas hangs on to for dear life. The most scintillating of these episodes is when the heroine dresses up fancily to seduce a drum player (Elisha Cook Jr.) working at the theatre where Scott took his mystery date on the night of his wife’s murder. The musician, Cliff, had made serious eye contact with the now vanished woman and would have certainly noticed her hat and therefore should recollect her. Ella Raines takes on a completely different personality, a ‘hip kitten’ as she describes herself to an ogling Cliff. He takes her to a strange, underground room in an nondescript location where a band is playing a swinging jazz tune when Cliff joins along on the drums, rat tat tapping so quickly and violently as Kansas looks on excitedly, the sweat dripping off his forehead, the intensity increasing by the second just like… Siodmak could not have made the allusion any less subtle, which can turn some viewers off. Even so, the off kilter camera angles, the intensity of the music, the stares, the grins, everything comes together to make for a bizarre meta-porn scene only that the two people involved never actually have intercourse. The film is filled to the brim with such scenes where Siodmak and his team come up with richly evocative situations and sets that heighten the story, taking the viewer away from the normality of their living room and into what the best of these films created: a hyper-stylized, luscious but constantly dangerous version of the world.
More than halfway through the picture Franchot Tone shows up as Scott’s longtime friend Jack Marlow, just returned from South America where he was working on his sculpting. There honestly is no reason to introduce as important a character as Marlow so late in the story unless he has something to do with Scott’s current fate. No points for guessing if he might have planned the whole scheme all along. Whilst the film forgoes the opportunity to create suspense around mystery, it succeeds in building it by having Kansas put her trust in Marlow. He seems kind enough and willing to assist in any way he can but the audience knows better. Every time she is alone with him the opportunity is there for Marlow to liquidate her and be rid of her pesky doggedness. Tone’s performance is yet another highlight even though some might completely disagree just for how strangely theatrical it is. Marlow clearly suffers from some mental disorder (the version of mental disability depicted in thrillers to showcase how a man can become a killer that is), experiencing the occasional dizziness to the head while other times starring uncertainly at his own hands, unsure as to whether they are tools for good or tools for evil, going so far as to make a small speech about the very subject before offing one of the people he paid off to keep Kansas in the dark from the truth. Marlow is a weird character to say the least in no small part thanks to Tone’s deliberately schizophrenic performance.
There is a visible craftsmanship to Phantom Lady that helps it reach the upper echelon of movie magic. It is a slick, well produced bit of entertainment that takes bold chances with its plotting. Characters are introduced at inopportune moments in the film yet it actually benefits from those decisions. Having a rare female protagonist who only pretends to be a femme fatale is equally pertinent, landing Phantom Lady in a small club of films that took that chance during in the period.
-Edgar Chaput
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