7.3 | / 10 |
Users | 0.0 | |
Reviewer | 3.5 | |
Overall | 3.5 |
Frank Johnson flees police after becoming an eyewitness to murder. He is pursued around scenic San Francisco by his wife, a reporter, the police, and... the real murderer.
Starring: Ann Sheridan, Dennis O'Keefe, Robert Keith, John Qualen, Frank JenksFilm-Noir | 100% |
Crime | Insignificant |
Drama | Insignificant |
Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 1.35:1
Original aspect ratio: 1.37:1
English: LPCM Mono
English SDH
50GB Blu-ray Disc
Two-disc set (1 BD, 1 DVD)
DVD copy
Region B, A (locked)
Movie | 3.5 | |
Video | 3.5 | |
Audio | 3.5 | |
Extras | 3.0 | |
Overall | 3.5 |
Have you heard of Norman Foster? Unless you’re a fan of detective B-movie franchise entries like Charlie Chan at Treasure Island or Mysterious Mr. Moto, chances are you might need to be nudged a bit to come up with other credits of this journeyman director. Foster had a long if underappreciated and perhaps perceived as being less than distinguished career, something that the range of Foster’s directorial efforts tends to put the lie to. There are a number of well done offerings completed under Foster’s directorial aegis, including Journey Into Fear, a 1943 Mercury Theater presentation with Orson Welles that is so stylish it’s long been insisted that Welles at least helped with directing, if not did it all outright himself (something that Welles was on the record as forcefully denying). Woman on the Run is a really interesting 1950 quasi-noir that nonetheless lacks several of noir’s most defining tropes. There’s no sultry blonde femme fatale leading some poor hapless shlub to his imminent demise, nor is there even some kind of nefarious plot that ties morally ambivalent characters together. Instead, a probably none too happily married couple deals with the after effects of the husband having witnessed a murder, with a kind of self imposed witness protection program leading to a cascading series of events, many of which tend to reflect on the unhappy marriage than any real perceived threat from without. Woman on the Run may not rise to absolute classic status, but it’s a fascinating film and one that manages to evoke a noir ambience without indulging in what were even by 1950 already tried and true gambits of the still fledgling genre.
Woman on the Run is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Arrow Academy with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.35:1. Arrow's typically informative booklet gets into the provenance of the elements, which in this case was a dupe negative held by the British Film Institute. Audio needed to be sourced separately for a variety of reasons (some of the supplementary material gets into this in detail), and Eddie Muller's probably illegal subterfuge (also detailed in the supplements) probably helped to salvage that side of things, since the only known American print was destroyed in the 2008 Universal fire (the booklet incorrectly states the date as 2007). This transfer has issues which the restoration hasn't completely ameliorated, though the 2K scan struck from a new fine grain master positive has a lot going for it, especially when one considers the lack of primary source material. There's still quite a bit of damage to be seen here, including minus density, flecks (both black and white) and outright mars to the image, including scratches and the like. Some of the roughhewn appearance and problematic contrast can be traced almost entirely to the source. That said, detail is often quite good, to the point that (to cite just one example) little flyaway threads on the tweed coat Sheridan wears for most of the film can easily be spotted. Some of the darkest scenes suffer from near crush, something that I am also attributing to the secondary source material. Grain is fairly heavy but resolves naturally and engenders no compression anomalies. I'd probably score this closer to 3.25 if I were able to, but wanted to differentiate the more homogeneous appearance of this release from the simultaneously released Too Late for Tears (review forthcoming), which has a considerably more heterogeneous look due to differing source elements.
Eddie Muller's sneaky duplicating efforts managed to rescue this film's soundtrack, and while the LPCM Mono iteration is not going to win any awards from audiophiles, it's considerably less damaged than the video presentation, and offers a decent amount of depth within generally narrow confines. The film is built largely out of dialogue, and expected boxiness tends to come into play mostly in moments like the credits sequence with the florid orchestral underscore. A few sound effects don't quite resonate with a lot of impact, but generally speaking there's little to complain about here, if similarly little to write home about.
Woman on the Run is a rather intriguing little film, but for cineastes the behind the scenes information (including about the film's history after its release) is probably going to be just as intriguing as anything within the film itself. Arrow has done a typically excellent job, and the Film Noir Foundation's restoration, while not completely able to overcome deficiencies in the source material, is commendable. Recommended.
Indicator Series | Standard Edition
1945
Arrow Academy
1949
Limited Edition
1950
Indicator Series
1947
Arrow Academy
1946
Arrow Academy
1946
1950
Arrow Academy
1946
Indicator Series
1949
Indicator Series | Standard Edition
1948
Indicator Series
1949
Arrow Academy
1944
Premium Collection
1947
I Became a Criminal / Indicator Series
1947
1951
1948
Premium Collection
1951
Arrow Academy
1942
1945
1945