Frustrated after a rowe with his wife, Scott (Alan Curtis) picks up a
random girl (Fay Helm) in a bar and takes her to a Broadway show before
the two seperate again, not even telling each other their names. When
Scott returns home, he finds his wife strangled and himself the prime
suspect in her murder case. He tries to convince the police he was out
with a total stranger, but when he tries to track down witnesses who have
seen her with the woman, everybody seems to remember just him but not his
companion - and thus, in a trial he is convicted to death. Faced with
his impending execution, Scott has already given up all hope, but his
secretary Carol (Ella Raines), who's secretly in love with him, will hear
nothing of it, and she tries to find out why everybody lied about Scott's
companion, soon finding out that someone has paid all witnesses - but
whenever someone is ready to make a confession, he seems to die. Eventually
though, Carol finds unexpected support from inspector Burgess (Thomas
Gomez), the very cop who arrested Scott but is now less than sure about
his guilt. And then Jack Marlow (Franchot Tone) arrives on the scene,
Scott's best friend who has been to Brazil but has returned to save his
friend - which is bad, because as the audience has come to know, Burgess
is actually the killer. Marlow does everything to steer Carol clear from
any actual witnesses, but she however finds the phantom lady (= Scott's
companion) via her exotic hat. Thing is, Marlow was with Carol when she
found the phantom lady, and now he plans to simply kill Carol to put an
end to all speculations - and much too late, Carol realizes whom she has
thrown in with. Fortunately though, inspector Burgess arrives just in
time, and to escape arrest, Marlow throws himself out of a window to his
death. And why did Marlow do it? Because he wanted to run away with
Scott's wife, but she only mocked him, which drove him, a paranoiac, into
a homicidal rage ... In the end, Carol gets the boy - Scott that is. Somehow,
the plot of this film seems to be less than thought through: The basic
premise is that CArol is looking for the woman who was with Scott to
provide him with an alibi, but all the other witnesses actually give him
an alibi anyways, so it's immaterial if some lady was with Scott or not,
so why all the bother really? That said, despite the flawed main
motivation of the plot, Phantom Lady is a great film noir, slickly
directed, full of tension, suspense and plottwists to keep the audience
constantly on their toes, and a set of fine actors of course help to keep
the film alive and make one forget its narrative weaknesses. Recommended,
actually.
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