4/5
Robert Siodmak’s Phantom Lady is a thoroughly compelling noir, filled with gorgeous camerawork and direction throughout – especially with some of the night sequences in which our protagonist follows her leads under cover darkness and shadow. It’s refreshing to have a noir in which our primary viewpoint character is a woman, though I wish the hadn’t taken so long to introduce her and get into the meat of the film. There is an absolutely delightful sequence in which she sits on the same barstool night after night, intimidating a bartender as she tries to get information about a murder. It would have been nice if the film didn’t give away so many of the pieces to the mystery as early as it does, but that’s a minor complaint in a film that is such a pleasure.
