Sunday | October 18, 2015 5:00 pm

Phantom Lady

Screening on Film

Directed by Robert Siodmak.
With Franchot Tone, Ella Raines, Alan Curtis.
US, 1944, 35mm, black & white, 87 min.
Print source: Universal

The masterpiece of film noir’s consummate artist Robert Siodmak is Phantom Lady, a trance film that launches an oneiric voyage into the underworld led by a resolute (and lovestruck) secretary’s determination to clear the name of her boss who has been framed for murder. The haunting, chiseled beauty of Ella Raines, in the lead role, is only part of the lasting mystery cast by the film and its brilliant use of extreme lighting to render near-empty bars and night streets as the sites of sudden, ominous encounters.