Daily Movie Rec 4/16/2023 (Double Feature)
Phantom Lady (1944)
"Madness is- is a frightening word."
Directed by: Robert Siodmak
Cinematography by: Elwood Bredell
Country: United States
Plot:
A young secretary puts her life at risk to investigate and clear her boss’s name after he’s imprisoned for killing his wife.
Reasons to watch:
Phantom as in invisible: the way women are discarded, forgotten, and robbed of names - ghosts in life and death. Phantom as in haunting: the way Ella Raines’s protagonist, Carol Richman, stalks her investigative targets like a specter of guilt. Raines is magnetic in this nightmarish (intermittently feminist leaning) noir, displaying chameleonic range as the cunning and unflinching secretary, while the expressionistic lighting adds a sinister atmosphere and an unobscured view into the characters’ grim psyches.
The Criterion Channel
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