starring Franchot Tone, Ella Raines, Alan Curtis
directed by Robert Siodmak
87 minutes
Carol "Kansas" Richman (Ella Raines) tries to figure out who framed Scott Henderson (Alan Curtis), her boss, for the murder of his wife. All the evidence seems to point to Scott being the murderer but Carol is convinced, possibly in part because she is in love with him, that he in innocent.
Scott's alibi is that he was went to a show with a woman whom he met in a bar. He didn't get the woman's name (the titular phantom lady) and has no way of contacting her to back him up. He gets put on trial and sentenced to death.
Inspector Burgess, who investigated the murder of Scott's wife, has second thoughts about the job he did with the investigation. He tries to help Carol investigate the case. Carol also gets gentle persuasion from Jack Marlowe (Franchot Tone) who tries to encourage her to leave New York and move back to the Midwest.
Thoughts
Ella Raines is basically the star of this film, even though she didn't get top billing. She doesn't enter the picture until after Scott has been accused of murdering his wife. The movie should have opened by focusing on her or at least with her in the picture, even if only to then spend 10-15 minutes playing out the moments which opened the movie. The misdirection added nothing in my mind.
This movie was produced by a woman and starred a woman playing the sort of role that would usually be played by a man. I don't think these facts make it a great movie but do make it worth noting and probably worth seeing.
This movie was comically bad in some ways. It isn't awful it just isn't that great even if it does have some memorable scenes. The melodramatic nature of it brought a smile to my face on several occasions and even made me laugh once or twice.
04/13/25 23:30
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