A Forgotten Dame's Descent: Rediscovering Noir's Hidden Gem

Far better than I ever would have anticipated... Considering that this film is in the public domain and I've never heard of it, I naturally assumed it would be a pretty crappy example of Film Noir. However, I was very pleasantly surprised and recommend you give this film a try. It's very well written and gives Ann Sheridan perhaps her best film role as a very noir-like 'dame'! In addition to her lovely performance, you have ubiquitous Robert Keith and Dennis O'Keefe. The film begins with some ordinary guy walking his dog late at night... he just happens to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, as he accidentally sees a witness against a mobster being murdered. But I really don't want to go further, as it would compromise your enjoying the film.

Shown for theatrically for the first time in 40 years at the 2003 San Francisco Noir Festival, this rediscovered gem has some of the classic elements that make the genre so appealing. Here an innocent bystander to a murder is on the run with a wife who is desperately trying to find him before the cops or the killer can get to him. A wisecracking Ann Sheridan careens around San Francisco with reporter Dennis O'Keefe who may or may not be an ally. One of the delights is that the city is portrayed realistically with picturesque 1950 settings in North Beach, Chinatown, Telegraph Hill and the long gone Playland at the Beach.

This neat little thriller from 1950 is all the more interesting since Ann Sheridan is the woman in the title. Miss Sheridan is most convincing as she searches for her husband who witnessed a gangland murder and must find him before the underworld does. There are many tense moments along the way especially when she ends up riding on a roller coaster. Good support from Dennis O'Keefe, Robert Keith and Ross Elliott plus a good screenplay help this film rise above B status. It's all about making a location do what you want it to within the frame of the budget.

Woman on the Run has some wonderful scenes. Ann Sheridan plays a disenchanted wife whose husband was a witness to a gangland killing while walking his little dog. Realising that he is in great danger the man goes into hiding. Right from the beginning the noirish drama is mixed with hilarious humor. The police officers who come to the Sheridan character's house after the incident are cheeky and mean to the extreme. Many aspects of the script do not stand up to logic. But, well, it is 'only a movie' and therefore it does not matter at all;quite on the contrary in fact.

An infinitely better and more rewarding movie experience now than when it was released in 1950. Seeing it again makes me appreciate everything about it, a film noir classic. To make such a no-nonsense, concise and plausible crime thriller with a sensational finale today certainly seems to be asking for the impossible. Ann Sheridan, of a certain age, never sexier and looking like a million dollars, dominates the screen, as usual. She can do anything, but overact. She's the real thing. Scenes in this movie bear comparison to Orson Welles' Touch of Evil and Alfred Hitchcock's Strangers on a Train.

While out late one night walking his dog, Frank Johnson finds himself in the unwanted situation of being a witness to a murder. The police arrive and inform Frank that as he can identify the killer he has to be taken in protective custody. However, fearful for his life Frank goes on the run. His wife Eleanor soon finds out that her husband is not the person she had been bored with, but an intelligent, talented and witty man. Believing her marriage was in permanent decline, she suddenly remembers why she loved him in the first place and sets out to find him. The search is made all the more frantic when Eleanor discovers Frank had been hiding a heart defect from her.