It’s almost forgotten. A quickie from 1950, one of those magical years in Hollywood.
The studio system was tottering but still dominant, and film noir in general was very much in decent, watchable shape. As you may have noticed, we’ve included below some of our top noir picks (one from the 1950’s), and while Woman On The Run doesn’t meet this high threshold, it’s certainly worth another look-see.
A man (Ross Elliott) in a shaky marriage witnesses a brutal murder, and, fearing the killer will come after him too, takes it on the lam. A police hunt ensues initially without the aid of the man’s wife (Ann Sheridan), who harbors mixed feelings about her husband. Finally, she realizes the danger of the situation and cooperates with police Inspector Ferris (played by the fine character actor Robert Keith, the father of actor Brian) and puts herself into danger.
We realize that we’re giving away a plot secret, but the fellow the wife thinks is a good guy — isn’t. He’s played by Dennis O’Keefe, a film noir hero who usually portrays stalwarts very much on the good side of the law (check him out in 1947’s T-Men).
This tidy (77-minutes) thriller was co-scripted and directed by Norman Foster, who eight years before co-directed (with Orson Welles) the magnificent Joseph Cotten thriller Journey Into Fear. It was filmed largely in San Francisco, and was backed by Universal-International, a major studio then and now. Good for Universal.
Now to some of our top noir picks:
—Stranger on the Third Floor (Remastered Edition)
— The Set-Up (1949)
— Detour
— Too Late For Tears
— The Hitch-Hiker, RKO, 1953. Two likable blokes (Edmond O’Brien and Frank Lovejoy) on the road pick up the wrong man, and all hell breaks loose. This one is based on a true-life incident, and was the only noir directed by a woman, Ida Lupino, who graced many a genre title as a superbly sultry actress. What pulls the movie together is the evil performance of working actor William Tallman as the murderous psychotic waving that pistol in the back seat. Tense, psychological drama. Get this and several others from this post on Classic Film Noir (The Man Who Cheated Himself / The Hitchhiker / Detour / D.O.A / Too Late for Tears / The Stranger / Strange Love of Martha Ivers / Quicksand / The Scar)
— T-Men, Eagle Lion Films, 1948. A cops-and-robbers saga, specifically about U.S. Treasury agents breaking up an especially brutal counterfeiting ring. There are creditworthy performances from Dennis O’Keefe and Alfred Ryder, among others, directed by Anthony Mann. What made this tense police hunt for us is the presence of one of our favorite working actors, Charles McGraw, as the sadistic nasty who slowly slays a stool pigeon (a hapless Wallace Ford) by locking him in a steam bath and then running up the temperature. Marvelous. Get this film and several others on John Alton Film Noir Collection (T-Men / Raw Deal / He Walked by Night) – The ClassicFlix Restorations on Blu-ray
Finally, this bonus choice: Shoot the Piano Player (English Subtitled)
As I’ve mentioned so often, many of these FILM NOIR movies are available to watch FREE on YouTube, and most of them have been re-mastered.
Sometimes they are taken down very fast, and some never get touched by the copyright censors, so go figure.
It’s kind of funny, that if the cast and crew of these old movies made on the cheap, on basically a fast TV type shooting schedule… If they knew that these ‘B’ movies would be so well worshiped all these years later, they’d be so surprised.
After decades of TV re-runs, with no residuals as actors guild president Ronald Reagan sold them out in 1960 in what was called “the great giveaway,” a real crime in itself… If all the pseudo film scholars, critics and new generations of writers and directors, realized that you really can make great movies on very tight budgets, and if a movie flops on its initial release, future showings on TV can give it a chance to become great, as is so often the case.
Those old movies that were literally made at night in the shadows, REALLY shine when you compare them to what HOLLYWOOD offers us today!
Flicker Alley and the Film Noir Foundation have released “Woman On The Run” in DVD/Blu-ray with always-terrific commentary by Eddie Muller and I highly recommend getting it so you don’t have to sit thru the crummy Public Domain prints you’ve seen on YouTube and on DVD for years (if this film was ever remastered for YouTube they did a pretty lousy job of it). BTW, to help pay for the production, the producers (which included Ms. Sheridan on the down-low) obviously engaged in an early version of product placement with Ken-L Ration dog food, McIlhenny Tabasco Sauce and Lea & Perrins sauce being used in a plot point.
I was always surprised Reagan often spoke while running for president as having once been the president of SAG; I thought it would invite reporters to look into his time in office and especially “The Great Giveaway” but that rarely happened (I do remember a big story on it in Rolling Stone once).