Woman on the Run (1950)

Directed by Norman Foster; produced by Howard Welsch

Frank Johnson (Ross Elliott) is an ordinary man out walking his dog one night. It’s his ill luck to witness a gangland murder. He’s seen the killer, and when the police detective (Robert Keith) investigating the crime pressures him into being the star witness - and the mob’s star target - he spontaneously flees. His estranged wife, Eleanor (Anne Sheridan), has to track him down, with the aid of a newspaper reporter (Dennis O’Keefe), before both the cops and the killer find him. Along the way, she learns a great deal about her husband - and herself.

What starts out as a routine crime-story becomes a tense and involving thriller, thanks largely to the acting of Sheridan and O’Keefe. These two work well together. They are able to make their characters evolve: Sheridan through the course of the movie, and O’Keefe in a small but significant way.

Sheridan, whose face was made for the sarcastic riposte, and who could play both romantic leading lady and smart-alecky sidekick, combines the two roles here. O’Keefe likewise could handle good guy and bad: his Danny Legget accurately describes himself as “obnoxious but pleasant.”

The script and the story are also advantages to Woman on the Run. The plot reveals a key element about two fifths of the way through the film, something that changes the complexion of the story. At first thought, it might seem to ruin the movie, throwing away a good surprise. Then it becomes clear that the revelation adds tension to the film, and was a good decision.

The script benefits from the dialogue between Sheridan and O’Keefe. They reputedly wrote many of their own lines, and this makes them sound natural, in both words and delivery. The rest of the screenplay, co-written by the director and Alan Campbell, unfolds a kind of mystery as it tells its principal tale of crime: Eleanor Johnson slowly realises that there is more to her husband than she ever thought, even when she was first in love with him.

The movie makes excellent use of San Francisco locations, but the direction is fairly ordinary until the climax, which is Hitchcockian in its stress, and almost nightmarish from Eleanor’s point of view.

Woman on the Run gives a fine actress rare top-billing in a crime drama, and she, her leading man, supporting players, the writers and director, all make for a lesser-known film noir entry that deserves a bigger audience.