Phantom Lady (1944) is a black-and-white film noir directed by Robert Siodmak, his first Hollywood noir. It was also a first for producer Joan Harrison, Universal Pictures' first female executive and Hitchcock's former screenwriter. The film was based on a Cornell Woolrich same name novel (under pen name William Irish).
In what may be the film's most famous sequence, rhythmic inter-cutting between Elisha Cook, Jr.'s frantic drumming (dubbed by Gene Krupa) at a seedy night club and the leering responses of sexy secretary Ella Raines climaxes in a heated sexual encounter without actually showing a sex act on the screen.
Unhappily married Scott Henderson spends the evening on a no-name basis with a hat-wearing woman he picked up in a bar. Returning home, he finds his wife strangled and becomes the prime suspect in her murder. Every effort to establish his alibi fails; oddly no one seems to remember seeing the phantom lady (or her hat). In prison, Scott gives up hope but his faithful secretary, "Kansas," doggedly follows evanescent clues through shadowy nocturnal streets. Can she save Scott in time? Written by Rod Crawford
