Woman on the Run (1950)

Good , But It Is Overrated By Some

Excellent but underrated film

Crappy film

This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

An interesting story with a convulsive finale: Frank Johnson, who walking his dog unvoluntarily becomes the witness of a murder, doesn't want anything to do with the police, so he is the real one on the run. As he absconds, the police set on his wife instead, who cannot help them, as she actually knows nothing about her husband: a curious marriage, one might say. He is even reluctant to admitting she is his wife, and when asked if he is married, he answers only vaguely, like "sort of". Thus Ann Sheridan becomes the lead and completely domintes the film, as she also is hounded by the police for being married to an escaped eyewitness, but she shakes them all off, except one reporter, who never lets her alone. His shadowing her ends up in a situation that must be described as the worst possiblke you could ever find yourself in alive and with no way out. The film is worth seeing only for this very dramatic finale, which you will never forget. It's actually a B-film, but the finale lifts it up many categories.

***SPOILERS*** While walking his dog Rembrandt one evening out of work artist Frank Johnson,Ross Elliott,witness the gangland murder of star witness for the prosecution Joe Gordon, Tom Dillon, who's to testify against the mob the very next day. With Gordon's killer mistakenly taking a number of pot shots at Johnson's shadow who in the dark thinks is Johnson in the flesh he now has to knock the fleeing Johnson off to keep him from identifying against him as Gordon's murderer! It's Johnson's wife Eleanor, Ann Sheridan, who's at first very uncooperative with the police in finding her husband would be killer in her feeling, in Eleanor almost being estranged from him, that he had it coming. But still she feels he should be found since he has a serious heart condition and could drop dead at any given moment if he doesn't get his heart medication that he left, and can't get without a doctor's prescription, in the couples apartment.Elenore or better yet her on the lamb husband Frank gets a lifeline in reporter Dan Leggett, Dennis O'Keefe, taking a personal interest-as well as promising to pay Elenore $1,000.00- for an exclusive story about her husband's plight in running from the mob. Searching out all the dives and flop house as well as waterfront gin-mills in the San Francisco area that Frank may have visited it's discovered that he was seen at Sammy's, played by former Charlie Chan #2 son Victor Sen Yung, dance studios checking out and sketching the young girls in their skimpy outfits doing their dance routines! One of those girls who knew more, about Gordon's killer, then she was willing to admit to the police Suzie,Rako Soto, ended up killed thrown from a 4th floor window before she could, from a drawing of him that she made, identify him.****SPOILERS*** Not quite the smart cookie as we all watching the movie thought she was Eleanor totally misread reporter Leggett's real intentions in trying to find her husband Frank. And it had nothing to do in saving his life from the mob in that he's in fact no reporter at all! He's the mob hit-man who did in Joe Gordon and now is determined to whack Frank Johnson to keep he from identifying him to the SFPD as well as FBI! If Elenore had no idea, until it was almost too late, to just who this kind teddy bear like and understanding reporter Dan Leggett was police inspector Ferris, Robert Keith, who checked the big phony out did! And by getting to Johnson just minutes before "Danny Boy" Leggett tried to induce, by strangling him, Johnson to suffer a fatal heart-attack he, with a blast from his .38, prevented him from doing it!

As another user here said, seeing that this film was in the public domain for anyone to sell or distribute made me assume that perhaps it would be a film that wasn't even seen as worthy of the cost of the stamp to renew the copyright. I was pleasantly surprised to see that actually, while not brilliant, it was actually quite enjoyable in how it moved. The plot sees a normal guy (Frank) out for a walk when he witnesses a murder and, although shot at himself, he is not hit. The police interview him as a witness but it quickly becomes clear to Frank that he was very lucky not to be killed himself and will clearly be a target again. As a result he goes missing and soon his wife (Eleanor) is looking for him, believing that he is actually running away from their difficult relationship. With journalist Danny Leggett alongside her looking for a scoop, she sets off to find him herself.The story unfolds as a reasonably engaging thriller with solid development. I enjoyed the relationship between Leggett and Eleanor as it skirts on the sort of playfulness that you tend to get with male/female partnerships in these sort of films but yet at the same time as more going on as Eleanor is open about her relationship. As others have said here, there is a twist at the end and it probably works much better if you don't know it is coming, because if you do then you are pretty much looking for it (which is why I think telling people there is a twist is a sort of spoiler in and of itself). Anyway, it is not too hard to guess but it is still quite nice when it comes.Although the film opens with Elliott, he is absent from most of the film and never really made an impact on me. Sheridan is great though with her turn and she works very well with O'Keefe. The direction from Foster is good at making an atmosphere without overdoing it in the process. Generally the film delivers well and has a nice tough edge mixed with playfulness which teases the viewer in quite a satisfying way.

This is a noirish suspense film directed by Norman Foster, previously noted for JURNEY INTO FEAR (1943, with script by Orson Welles), and who had done numerous Mr. Moto and Charlie Chan films. The direction is very good, and it is a pity that Foster never made it to the big leagues but spent most of the latter part of his career directing for television, including 14 episodes of Zorro. This film features B stars Ann Sheridan and Dennis O'Keefe. Ann Sheridan was only 35 at the time this film was made, but she looked older and seemed very tired and lacking in spirit. Perhaps she was already ill, because she was later to die aged only 51, having made 96 films, which is enough to make anybody weary, I suppose. Earlier in her career she had been a sultry hot number who was known as the 'Oooomph girl' because she had the 'oooomph'. (That is obsolete forties slang for sex appeal.) In this film Dennis O'Keefe does not play a square-jawed upright detective as he often did, but a man posing as a journalist who is really a vicious killer. One weakness in the story line is that the police do not seem to realize that he is not a real a journalist, which is ridiculous, considering how active he is in chasing the case they are investigating and that they must have been familiar with all real journalists covering crime stories. The film was shot on location in San Francisco, so that there are many interesting shots of San Francisco as it was in 1950. The film has a dramatic opening. Sheridan's husband (played by Ross Elliott, who appeared in an amazing 243 film roles in his lifetime, dying at 82 in 1999) is walking his dog at night, having climbed up some high steps in the semi-darkness, and above him he sees a car drive up and park. The driver of the car shoots his passenger dead and dumps his body. The husband sees the killer's face and, being an artist by profession, is able to draw it and identify the man. The killer sees him and shoots at him, trying to kill the only witness of the murder. But he aims at the shadow rather than the man himself, so misses. The husband then disappears, leaving his wife (Sheridan) exposed to danger, hence O'Keefe befriends her and helps her to try to find her husband, who is in hiding. She naturally does not know that this apparently helpful and rather glamorous man, whom she prefers to the abrasive and irritating police officers, is really trying to find her husband so that he can kill him. She is thus unwittingly leading a killer to her own husband, and in the process is heedlessly disregarding all the wise cautions of the police. It makes for an exciting story, and there are several dramatic scenes, such as shots from a roller coaster at an amusement park. At one point, Sheridan is trapped on a car riding the roller coaster while below her she can see O'Keefe approaching her husband, and she has just realized that he intends to kill him. She screams warnings which no one can hear. This is all very dramatic stuff and well done. Although this is a B film, it is a superior one, and let's face it, some of us like B films, don't we?