Woman on the Run

Typically dismissed as a minor director whose best work was as assistant to Orson Welles, the talented Norman Foster had a significant career unto his own that began with his work directing some of the best entries in the Charlie Chan and Mr. Moto series (see MR. MOTO’S LAST WARNING included in this program) but also included a group of accomplished Spanish language genre films made in Mexico. Perhaps the best place to launch a reevaluation of Foster is the rediscovered noir thriller WOMAN ON THE RUN, starring Ann Sheridan as an estranged wife searching for her embittered artist husband-in-hiding after he is targeted by the mob for accidently witnessing a crime. Joining Sheridan in her rescue mission through the urban underbelly is Dennis O’Keefe’s strangely insistent crime reporter who may have alternate motives. WOMAN ON THE RUN makes stunning use of its San Francisco and Los Angeles locations to inject a vérité energy and palpable danger to its gripping story, including a thrilling roller coaster climax shot on the Santa Monica pier by pioneering cinematographer Hal Mohr who across his long career refined dollies and cranes to make possible a richer kind of expressive camera movement (Haden Guest)

With RAW DEAL