Woman on the Run

Ann Sheridan and Dennis O'Keefe

Norman Foster's Woman on the Run is a pretty good noir from 1950. This black and white B feature, long thought lost, has been lovingly restored and put out on disc by Flicker Alley. Ann Sheridan stars as Eleanor Johnson, a woman whose husband was witness to a mob hit and is on the run from both the gangsters and the police. She spends the flick racing about San Francisco seeking to find and aid her man. She is aided in this by tabloid reporter Dan Legget (Dennis O'Keefe) who appears quite willing to use checkbook journalism in order to get an exclusive story. The film reveals the identity of the hit man halfway through the picture and this increases rather than ameliorates the suspense. In this, the film is following Hitchcock's dictum that it is more fruitful to let the audience in on the peril facing a protagonist rather than randomly springing it on them. An audience will feel more terror and suspense when they know that a bomb's explosion is imminent rather than experiencing it as an unforeseen jump scare.   

The location shooting in San Francisco captures a blue collar, working port city that was long gone by the time I lived in Bagdad by the Bay in the 1980s. The opening murder sequence was shot in Los Angeles and the concluding amusement park sequence was shot in Santa Monica, but both are well integrated with the San Francisco footage. I especially enjoyed how Foster utilized the Santa Monica amusement park and its roller coaster to ratchet up the suspense in the final reel. A fatal rendezvous is scheduled to take place in the shadow of the roller coaster and Foster uses the coaster's edifice to reinforce the notion that the Johnsons are caught in a trap not of their own devise. A deterministic sense of doom permeates the film, one appropriate for noir. Eleanor finds herself confined on the coaster ride when she gleans that her husband is in mortal danger. She can only scream ineffectively as she rockets along the track. Theme and narrative are one as the protagonist's helpless plight is both metaphorically evoked and expressionistically portrayed.

Foster had started as actor, but by the late 1930s was wholly focused on directing films in Hollywood. He earned his spurs toiling on B features featuring Mr. Moto and Charlie Chan, but never really became a director of the first rank. Like many of his ilk, he had a healthy subsequent career directing television shows and films. I fondly remember the Davy Crockett films he directed for Disney. One aspect of his career that aided in keeping him obscure is his long association with Orson Welles. Foster certainly assisted Welles on It's All True, but the notion that Welles directed Foster's 1943 thriller Journey Into Fear seems to me a canard. Certainly the occasional portentous shot in Journey Into Fear smacks of Welles, though. Women on the Run also betrays Welles influence. Indeed, at times it seems a knockoff of Welles' The Lady From Shanghai, especially with its Orientalism, San Francisco settings, and amusement park climax. Foster use of tilted low angle shots (see above) to create a sense of dislocation and unease is very reminscent of Welles. The difference between the two is that between a journeyman and a genius. Foster is a solid craftsman in the service of his story whereas Welles marshals his effects and affects into creating a cosmos all his own. A world in which lurking evil is a far more palpable and sinister presence than anything found in Foster's films.

Women on the Run is greatly helped by a bevy of fine supporting performances that animate the film's portrayal of the gritty edges of San Francisco, especially by John Qualen, J. Farrell MacDonald, and Steven Geray. Robert Keith, father of Brian, is particularly effective as a police inspector who seems to relish his own cynicism. Dennis O'Keefe is good in a role that lets him show off his raffish qualities. However, this is all Ann Sheridan's picture in more ways than one. Women on the Run was Sheridan's baby, an independent picture that she produced and partially financed after the ending of her contract with Warner Brothers. She was thirty five and apparently no longer young enough to play the oomph girl, though I think she is plenty sexy in both this and the previous year's I Was a Male War Bride. One thing I like about her performance is the ambiguity she projects towards her absent husband. Her Eleanor is not a meek doormat, but a breathing, feeling creature with the conflicting feelings that exist in all mature relationships. It is a brave and ballsy act, but it brought her little acclaim at the time. Woman on the Run was released by Universal who signed Sheridan to a new contract, but it could not prevent a career decline for Southern who died prematurely in 1967.

The Fall Guy

Ryan Gosling

I found David Leitch's The Fall Guy to be just diverting enough to recommend it. Leitch a former stunt man turned director, with such action packed films as Atomic Blonde and Bullet Train to his credit, is well on his way to becoming the Hal Needham of the 21st century, but The Fall Guy is at least suited to the narrow range of his talents. Ryan Gosling plays the titular stunt man who finds himself working on a science fiction film helmed by an ex-flame played by Emily Blunt. Gosling's character has to perform hair raising stunts, thwart the nefarious plans of the film's villains, and reclaim the heart of his lady love. Which, of course, he does since he is the Goose and this is a formulaic star vehicle built around his good looks and charm. 

I did find that the picture captured the camaraderie of a film set and provided some appealing character roles for its supporting cast: particularly Hannah Waddington, Stephanie Hsu, Winston Duke, and Aaron Taylor-Johnson who turns in an amusing parody of Matthew McConaughey. Blunt, who earned her action spurs on Edge of Tomorrow, has much less to do here than the Goose, but ably portrays a once bitten character who is wary of the macho lug before inevitably falling into his arms. It is a tribute to Ms. Blunt's talents that she is still being cast as a romantic lead even after reaching the Hollywood sell by date of the big 4-0. The relaxed assurance of Gosling ultimately is what sells this picture. The former Mouseketeer brings the physical grace of a dancer to the action scenes and a shy courtliness to the romantic ones.                  

The Unknown Soldier

Eero Aho

Aku Louhimies' The Unknown Soldier is a three hour Finnish epic that follows a single battalion through the course of Finland's Continuation War with the Soviet Union which lasted from 1941-1944 and followed the 1939-40 Winter War between the two combatants. The film chronicles the forth and back of the conflict across Karelia and the Soviet Union. Based on Väinö Linna's 1954 autobiographical novel, this overly handsome, yet technically assured film works best as a combat procedural. A strong point of view is lacking, though, except that war is heck.

Part of the problem is the broad canvas this 2017 flick attempts. Because of this, many of the characters come off as one dimensional: you get a Fascist, a Communist, and a raw recruit who you know is going to bite the bullet because he looks like Bambi. The director and fellow scenarist Jari Rantala have attempted to amplify our understanding of the protagonists by adding more about their loved ones waiting on the home front than is contained in the original novel, but this brings mixed results. It helps the audience better understand the civilian displacement caused by the war, but also overextends an already lengthy project. The romantic lead is a total washout, but Eero Aho as the insolent Corporal Rokka gives the film the focal point it badly needs.