This was the third of fourteen novels/short stories by Cornell Woolrich to be adapted for the screen in the nineteen forties. There had been one in 1929, one in 1934 and one in 1938 but the floodgates opened in the forties and though adaptations continued through subsequent decades it was the forties that were the most fruitful. The original novel, published in 1942, had another claim to fame inasmuch as it was the first time the pseudonym William Irish appeared in print - the publishers felt that the prolific Woolrich had published so many novels so quickly under that name - the name on his birth certificate read: Cornell George Hopley-Woolrich - that there was a danger of the public becoming sated, accordingly they suggested a new name might be in order and William Irish was the result. Woolrich/Irish quickly developed his own 'voice' and genre, psychological thriller-cum-terror and just a handful of forties titles adapted for the screen - The Leopard Man, Deadline At Dawn, Black Angel,Fear In The Night, I Wouldn't Be In Your Shoes, Night Has A Thousand Eyes - illustrate this although arguably the finest adaptation, The Window, had a somewhat innocuous title. Phantom Lady is slightly different to the novel though the premise remains the same; following a quarrel with his wife the protagonist meets a woman in a bar and invites her to spend the evening with him (he already has two tickets to a popular show, one meant for his wife) and she agrees with the proviso that they do not exchange names,, phone numbers, or indeed any scrap of personal information. Returning home he finds his wife has been strangled with one of his own neckties and he, with no real alibi, is the only suspect. Tried and convicted his only chance to escape the chair is for someone to locate the phantom lady, whose only distinguishing feature is a singular hat, so that we are now in a race- against-the-clock scenario which, given the date, 1944, will, we know, inevitably resolve itself happily. Director Robert Siodmak created a fine, atmospheric mood, drawing liberally on the expressionistic roots of his native Germany, whilst the cast comprised some of the names familiar to buffs of forties movies, Andrew Tombes, Thomas Gomez, Elisha Cooke, Ella Raines, Alan Curtis and top-billed Franchot Tone, cast against type. Certainly watchable and a reasonable addition to the 'noir' gallery.
Review of Phantom Lady
