Admirable film.

This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

The best films of this genre always show a path and provide a takeaway for being a better person.

Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.

***SPOILERS*** While walking his dog Rembrandt one evening out of work artist Frank Johnson,Ross Elliott,witness the gangland murder of star witness for the prosecution Joe Gordon, Tom Dillon, who's to testify against the mob the very next day. With Gordon's killer mistakenly taking a number of pot shots at Johnson's shadow who in the dark thinks is Johnson in the flesh he now has to knock the fleeing Johnson off to keep him from identifying against him as Gordon's murderer! It's Johnson's wife Eleanor, Ann Sheridan, who's at first very uncooperative with the police in finding her husband would be killer in her feeling, in Eleanor almost being estranged from him, that he had it coming. But still she feels he should be found since he has a serious heart condition and could drop dead at any given moment if he doesn't get his heart medication that he left, and can't get without a doctor's prescription, in the couples apartment.Elenore or better yet her on the lamb husband Frank gets a lifeline in reporter Dan Leggett, Dennis O'Keefe, taking a personal interest-as well as promising to pay Elenore $1,000.00- for an exclusive story about her husband's plight in running from the mob. Searching out all the dives and flop house as well as waterfront gin-mills in the San Francisco area that Frank may have visited it's discovered that he was seen at Sammy's, played by former Charlie Chan #2 son Victor Sen Yung, dance studios checking out and sketching the young girls in their skimpy outfits doing their dance routines! One of those girls who knew more, about Gordon's killer, then she was willing to admit to the police Suzie,Rako Soto, ended up killed thrown from a 4th floor window before she could, from a drawing of him that she made, identify him.****SPOILERS*** Not quite the smart cookie as we all watching the movie thought she was Eleanor totally misread reporter Leggett's real intentions in trying to find her husband Frank. And it had nothing to do in saving his life from the mob in that he's in fact no reporter at all! He's the mob hit-man who did in Joe Gordon and now is determined to whack Frank Johnson to keep he from identifying him to the SFPD as well as FBI! If Elenore had no idea, until it was almost too late, to just who this kind teddy bear like and understanding reporter Dan Leggett was police inspector Ferris, Robert Keith, who checked the big phony out did! And by getting to Johnson just minutes before "Danny Boy" Leggett tried to induce, by strangling him, Johnson to suffer a fatal heart-attack he, with a blast from his .38, prevented him from doing it!

Ann Sheridan plays a bitter housewife who has a way with a curt one liner in this nifty little noir from 1950.Her husband is on the run after inadvertently witnessing a murder. The detectives are hounding his wife for clues about where he might be (she honestly doesn't know). Also hounding her is a reporter (Dennis O'Keefe) who wants to be first to the scoop. Or is he really a reporter? The film makes the bold move of letting you know early on that the reporter is actually the murderer, and he's slyly manipulating Sheridan into leading him to her husband so that he can bump off the only witness. O'Keefe plays against type, proving that his sardonic charm works just as well when cast as a bad guy as it does when cast as the leading man.O'Keefe is good, but Sheridan provides the biggest incentive for watching this one. Her, and a cleverly filmed nail biter of a finale that takes place on and underneath a carnival roller coaster.I don't know why the film is called "Woman on the Run," since the husband is the one who runs away and the woman doesn't even know she's in danger until the very end. Maybe I'm just missing the point or maybe the title really doesn't make sense because film noir titles almost never do.

Remember in "The Man Who Knew Too Much" where Doris Day listens to a symphony in agony, knowing that an attempted murder is about to take place? The gripping fear shown by Ann Sheridan while on a roller-coaster ride knowing that her on-the-run husband (Ross Elliott) might suddenly be killed for witnessing a murder is just as tense, and the carnival music and sinister laugh of a fun-house harpie makes that even more nail biting. This isn't your Warner Brothers "Oomph Girl" Ann Sheridan or even the perplexed military officer who finds out she's married to Cary Grant in drag, but a hard-as-nails, world-weary wife who all of a sudden finds her life torn upside down and revelations about what everybody thought was a perfect marriage to be not so perfect.While the killer only saw her husband's shadow, it was enough of a clue to reveal the husband's identity to him, and Sheridan, police chief Robert Keith and reporter Dennis O'Keefe are desperate to find him before its too later. O'Keefe befriends Sheridan with the intent of not only getting the scoop but perhaps getting the girl as well, and this takes them all over San Francisco, one of the great film noir settings (think "Dark Passage" and "Sudden Fear") although unlike Joan Crawford, Sheridan doesn't run up and down the hilly streets in her high heels.A bit convoluted at times, this is still pretty interesting for the twists and turns it makes (although the film never goes near the crooked Lombard Street), and Sheridan is an engaging heroine, both dark and sympathetic, and someone you don't quite know what to make of at first. Actor turned director Norman Foster, best known for helming many of the Charlie Chan features, keeps the suspense high, and as usual, this is a film noir with a surprise ending that won't leave you feeling cheated.

I no longer know what makes a film "noir". I mean, it can't be simply a black-and-white detective movie or murder mystery with lots of shadows and a duplicitous woman, because then we're talking Charlie Chan. Literally, "noir" means black or, sometimes, "dark." The French broadened the meaning of "noir" to include American movies with an oppressive atmosphere, odd camera angles, and weird lighting set ups. I guess, if we stretch the semantics a little more, "Woman On The Run" may be called a "noir," though not a "noir d'ebene." I'd add the accents but can't find them.Okay, boys and girls, this is the story of an innocent but rather dumb man, Ross Elliott, who witnesses a murder in San Francisco. The murderer, whom we've heard called "Danny Boy", has witnessed the witness and takes a few shots at him. Elliott calls the cops who want to put him in protective custody. The idea doesn't appeal to Elliott. He takes a powder and we don't see him again until the end of the movie.The cops want Elliott badly. As it turns out, they want him rather more than his wife, Ann Sheridan. They're married but distant from one another. Sheridan doesn't even know he has a serious heart condition. When she finds out, she sets about trying to track Elliott down in the city in order to bring him the medicine he needs. She's accompanied by Dennis O'Keefe, a reporter for a tabloid newspaper who wants the story. And she's pursued by the police, who expect her to lead them to Elliott.It's her investigation of her husband's activities, of which she seems largely ignorant, that lifts this story above the routine. Sheridan visits Elliott's place of work, his bar, and so forth, and bit by bit realizes that her husband loves her, that he's too reserved to throw himself at her, and that she herself has been a demanding wife and a cold fish. Without that element of discovery, it's a more ordinary murder mystery shot on a modest budget.Nobody thinks of director Norman Foster as an "auteur" -- here come the French again -- but he does a good, craftsmanlike job here. The performances are okay. No one stands out. Everyone is reliable. There is a young Japanese girl who plays a Chinese dancer and she's quite memorable although she has only a few lines before she's thrown off a balcony. The guy who tosses her -- a guy we know but we don't know we know, y'know? -- ought to be brutally spanked. Instead he just winds up floating in the bay with a bullet in him.The climax is very well done for its type. The killer stalks Elliott among the cross-crossing shadows under a roller coaster while Sheridan, who has just learned the murderer's identity, tries to shout a warning from the rocketing amusement park ride.The filming locations put that amusement park in Carmel, but it can't be the Carmel that now exists. Nobody in Carmel would allow a roller coaster to perturb the tranquil artistry of the place. I suspect the real location was in Santa Cruz. The midway we see looks a lot like the place where back-lighted Dirty Harry fondled his .357 automag and muttered "Make my day".It's interesting to see the city's locations in 1950. Some have evolved, some not. I expect most of the indoor scenes were shot at Universal Studios. The outdoor scenes lack dialog except that which was dubbed in later. Yet, the city itself is pleasing to look at, on screen or in life. It's the most Mediterranean-looking city in the US because of the pastel houses and the multiple elevations. Everywhere you look, the earth is tossed and tumbled into mountains and hills. The rooftops are magnificent places to stage foot chases on, not to mention the views.