Plot Details: This opinion reveals minor details about the movie's plot.

When I picked up the 1950 noir "Woman on the Run," I didn't realize (/remember) that it was set in San Francisco. I recognized the name of director Norman Foster as the man who directed the taut adaptation of Eric Ambler's Journey Into Fear and (one of my favorite pulp titles) "Kiss the Blood Off My Hands." As for the leads, I remembered the dry humor of Ann Sheridan in Howard Hawks's "I Was a Male War Bride" (and in some Warner Brothers movies with Humphrey Bogart) and Dennis O'Keefe from the great Anthony Mann noirs "T-Men" and "Raw Deal" (and from Jacques Tourneur's "Leopard Man").

My expectations were modest and were considerably surpassed. The middle of the movie takes place during the day, but the menace is not lessened by the light of day here. There is no shortage of anomie, dread, and violence, that's for sure.

The movie begins in an upscale part of The City (as our newspapers refer to it), Telegraph Hill. Frank Johnson (Ross Elliott) is out walking his dog, Rembrandt. They witness a murder. The murderer fires at Frank's shadow before speeding off. Once the police arrive, Frank (and the viewer) learns that the murdered man was an eye-witness about to testify against a gangster in another murder trial.

Inspector Ferris (Robert Keith) tells Frank that he will be in protective custody until the trial, because the gang(ster) will be gunning for him to keep him from testifying. Frank manages to slips away (leaving Rembrandt). From a nearby apartment, the police roust Frank's wife, Eleanor (Ann Sheridan), out of bed. She is not at all cooperative with Inspector Ferris, though she does show him some of Frank's paintings and sketches and makes clear that she and Frank are not happily married.

The police, the press, and the killer all believe that she will lead them to Frank. She tells Inspector Ferris that she will urge him to go into protective custody, but that the decision is his to make.

A particularly determined reporter, Danny Leggett (Dennis O'Keefe), promises her a thousand dollars for an exclusive from Frank and the two of them go in search of Frank, periodically losing the police tails. The police learn that Frank has a heart condition and needs ampoules, Inspector Ferris orders that no prescriptions for the drug be filled until consulting with the police. Now Eleanor has life-saving pills to try to get to Frank, too.

Frank's day job (since his inheritance ran out) has been making mannequins. Eleanor recognizes that they are versions of her and realizes that there is more to her marriage than she realizes. There is also a Chinatown night club, and what is something of a San Francisco travelogue ends at Playland at the Beach, with terror on and under the rollercoaster (this was made before the carousel finale of Hitchcock's "Strangers on a Train").

The film is cleverly scripted(and/or moves too fast for some questions to arise, running only 77 minutes), and Sheridan is great in a complex role. She begins as a sarcastic, unhelpful noir dame, becomes a damsel in danger and distress (and a lot more in danger than she realizes), and reconsiders what she thought she knew over the course of the movie. "Woman on the Run" is said to be Norman's Foster's masterpiece; it is also contains Sheridan's great performance. O'Keefe and Keith are just fine in less demanding (very cynical noir) parts. So is Rembrandt. Hal Mohr's (Captain Blood, Destry Rides Again) cinematography and Otto Ludwig's (Saboteur) editing also deserve high marks.

The video transfer, alas doesn't. The film deserves better than the scratchy print.

From Nathaniel Rich's San Francisco Noir, I learned that the amusement park at which the last part was filmed was in Southern California (Ocean Park). This was disappointing, because I hoped that I was seeing what Whitney's Playland at the Beach looked like, since it was demolished before I ever saw San Francisco. The final shot, however, of "Laughing Sal" who now resides at the Musee Mecanique on Pier 45 (at the end of Taylor Street). She was a macabre feature at Playland.

A surprise is that there is no fog, not foghorns. One or both lend atmosphere to most San Francisco noirs.


Recommended: Yes

Viewing Format: DVD