Phantom Lady (1944)

Engineer Scott Henderson is at a seedy midtown Manhattan bar early one evening, drowning his sorrows over a failed marriage, when he strikes up a conversation with a woman . She’s well dressed, with a very ornate hat topping off her ensemble, and also seems even sadder and more lost than he is. Henderson persuades her to join him in taking advantage of the two theater tickets he has. They attend the show — a song-and-dance showcase by a Brazilian artist (Aurora) — and then part company without ever exchanging names. He returns home to find three detectives in his apartment and his wife strangled. Inspector Burgess questions Henderson and tries to verify his alibi, but no one — not the bartender, the cabbie who hauled them to the theater, or the drummer in the band who was watching her — admits to remembering the woman. Henderson can’t prove that he was elsewhere when his wife was strangled and is convicted of murder and sentenced to death. His assistant, Carol Richman , who has watched all of this happen, can’t sit by while Scott is destroyed, and decides to get at the truth, joined by Inspector Burgess, who now believes Henderson to be innocent.

Franchot Tone, Ella Raines, Alan Curtis, Elisha Cook, Jr., Thomas Gomez

1944, B&W, 87 minutes