Woman on the Run

I don't think I've done a full-length post on a noir in a while; the one Noir Alley selection I've mentioned recently is the remake of M. With that in mind, I watched Woman on the Run recently.

We don't see the woman at first; instead wee see her husband, Frank Johnson (Ross Elliott). He's out in San Francisco one evening walking their dog, when he sees a car pull up in a public park, and the passenger get shot! Unfortunately, the driver, who was apparently the shooter, saw Frank, and took a shot at him before driving off. The police, led by Inspector Ferris (Robert Keith), ask Frank if he can identify the shooter, telling Frank that this was a gangland hit. Frank understandably fears for his life, so he flees when he gets the first opportunity.

It's at this point that the police interview the man's wife, Eleanor (Ann Sheridan). To say that she's less than cooperative is an understatement. Apparently she's estranged from him because he's an unsuccesful artist, or at least one that doesn't have the ambition to sell his work even if it wins prizes. Eleanor doesn't like the police, either, so when the police wants to use her as bait to try to bring in her husband, she too takes the opportunity to flee, by going up to the roof.

She's not the first person to have that idea, as when she opens the window to the roof, she's met by intrepid reporter Dan Legget (Dennis O'Keefe), who wants a scoop on the story. He's willing to keep her one step ahead of the police, and is also willing to help her find her husband. As he helps her, however, we learn that he's got ulterior motives.

As for Eleanor, she meets a variety of people who tell her a lot more about her husband than she knew, and it causes her to start thinking about whether she should make another go of her marriage to him. It goes on until a climax at a beachfront amusement park, and... well, I'm not going to give the story away.

Woman on the Run is a fine entry in the noir cycle, with a good performance from Ann Sheridan, who at this point was trying unsuccessfully to resurrect her career. O'Keefe does well, and the supporting cast has a bunch of people who get pretty much just the one scene, but take it for all it's worth; among those are Steven Geray and John Qualen. The other big plus is all the San Francisco location shooting.

Woman on the Run was in danger of being lost for years, as Eddie Muller mentioned in his Noir Alley synopsis. His Noir Foundation helped restore the film, and they've put out a DVD of it with extras that's rather pricey for a short (77-minute) film. The TCM Shop also lists a cheaper DVD, and reading the IMDb reviews, that sounds like a copy of the lower-quality older print.