Phantom Lady

Phantom Lady is Robert Siodmak’s masterpiece. The style of the film could best be compared to a sustained and very loud drum solo. The story concerns a man who finds himself framed for a grisly murder; his only alibi, a mysterious lady in a black hat, seems to have disappeared off the face of the earth. The film is less a whodunit than a collection of brilliant scenes, each and every one of them built on an arresting stylistic device. Phantom Lady created a powerful mise-en-scène of squalor and violence. The story becomes an excuse for the exploration of the underworld, for a series of descending spirals into hell.