4 Star

Fear and Indifference in San Francisco.

Another release from those at Arrow Academy, a Film-Noir classic from the pen and direction of Norman Foster (Davy Crockett: King of the Wild Frontier). A tale of self preservation even though it is detrimental to his survival.

Frank Johnson (Ross Elliott, Kelly’s Heroes) is out walking his dog Rembrandt, when he hears a shot and he sees a man fall from a car door and then the driver of the car puts another bullet in him before spotting Frank and fires a couple of shots at him, but misses.

The man is dead and the police are called, Inspector Ferris (Robert Keith, The Wild One) identifies the stiff as Joe Gordon (Thomas P. Dillon, Black Beauty), the main witness in the ‘Smiley’ Freeman case. The thing is that Frank got a good look at the killer before he fired the shots at him and he wasn’t a bad shot, he hit Franks shadow rather than him.

Frank claims he lost his pipe in the hedge and starts looking for while Ferris sorts something out but when he looks back Frank has disappeared. So they bring in his wife Eleanor (Ann Sheridan, Angels with Dirty Faces), a woman with a considerable indifference to her husbands plight. She doesn’t really care that Frank has done a runner and definitely doesn’t want the attention of Ferris who now says that Frank is his main witness and he has to find him to protect him.

With a murder the press are quickly on the scene and the most determined of them is Dan Legget (Dennis O’Keefe, T-Men) who works for the the Graphic. Eleanor starts to learn more about her husband in a few hours than she has in the four years of their marriage, especially that he suffers from a heart condition and he has to take capsules which Ferris has stopped being dispensed all across the city of San Francisco.

This prompts her to find her husband, after he calls but the police were going to put a trace on the call so she warns him off. Later she knows where the call came from and she must go there, but the police have the place surrounded. so she heads up to the roof where to her surprise Dan is waiting.

He is keen to solve the riddle of her missing husband and offers her a deal, a grand for the scoop. She agrees and they set about following the clues that Frank starts leaving whilst avoiding the police tails.

A classic Film-Noir that will have you searching for the clues to the killer and with all these special features a definite one for the collector and the sleuth in the family.

Woman on the Run – Special Features
· Brand new restoration of original 35mm vault elements by UCLA Film & Television Archive
· Presented in High Definition Blu-ray (1080p) and Standard Definition DVD
· Original mono audio (uncompressed PCM on the Blu-ray)
· Optional English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing
· Audio Commentary by author, historian, and “noirchaeologist” Eddie Muller
· Love is a Rollercoaster: Woman on the Run Revisited – a new featurette on the making of the film, from script to noir classic, produced by Steven Smith and the Film Noir Foundation
· A Wild Ride: Restoring Woman on the Run – a stranger-than-fiction document of the film’s restoration, produced by Steven Smith and the Film Noir Foundation
· Noir City – a short documentary directed by Joe Talbot about the annual Noir City Film Festival presented by the Film Noir Foundation at San Francisco’s historic Castro Theatre
· Gallery featuring rare photographs, poster art and original lobby cards
· Reversible sleeve featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Matt Griffin
· Booklet featuring new writing by Eddie Muller