Woman In The Shadows

Hammett adaptation
SYNERGY Entertainment is a NYC based DVD-R manufacturer. Their "Archive Series" videos offer no commentary, deleted scenes, subtitles or other bonus features. Dubs are "best available source" and can vary from very good to only fair.

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The crime drama WOMAN IN THE DARK was adapted from a Dashiell Hammett story. German-born Phil Rosen was a renowned silent screen director who was reduced to working for Poverty Row outfits in the sound era. Typically, this minor programmer was a product of SELECT PICTURES, a struggling company that vanished after one more release.

Filmed at the old BIOGRAPH Studio in NYC, "Woman in the Dark" is the story of an ex-con with a bad temper who tries to avoid getting into new trouble by isolating himself in a remote forest cabin. His reverie is disrupted and plans ruined when a young woman suddenly appears and begs for protection from her psycho boyfriend.

Miss Wray, best known to modern audiences as the blonde in...

GOOD PRE-CODE PROGRAMMER
WOMAN IN THE SHADOWS a.k.a. WOMAN IN THE DARK (RKO, 1934), is a crime-melodrama based on a little known Dashiell Hammet story about a one-time loser out on parole who meets up with a gangster's runaway girlfriend and gets himself in more trouble when he comes to her defense.

Phil Rosen, director of several BLONDIE installments, helmed this well scripted little B product which contains elements of film noir even before the term was coined. Shadowy photography, tainted characters, and misunderstood motives figure in a plot with a few twists. Featured in the leading roles are three of the era's most dependable stars. Ralph Bellamy usually played second leads who lost the girl in classics like THE AWFUL TRUTH (1937) and HIS GIRL FRIDAY (1940), and he gives an engaging performance as the easy going parolee who doesn't want trouble but seems destined for it. Romantic leading man Melvyn Douglas is cast against type as the suave villain who isn't about to let his girl ditch him for...

Dashiell Hammett on Poverty Row
This is a typical Poverty Row production of the early 1930's. It has a weak, implausible script, is cheaply made, with direction and photography that is pedestrian or worse, and the surviving print is blurry and dingy. It does have a few points of interest:

1) The story on which the screenplay is based is credited to Dashiell Hammett at the IMDB and Wikipedia. However, no surviving print seems to have any writing credits at all (the film is in the public domain, and is available on YouTube and Archive.org). Perhaps Hammett or his estate was able to get them removed at some point, or at least demand royalties for the use of his name.

2) The only trace of Hammett is the way the character of the protagonist, played by Ralph Bellamy, is written: He is an ex-convict (although apparently an independently wealthy one), and is tough, taciturn, and somewhat bitter. Bellamy plays him well. In fact, Bellamy is not just the best thing in the film, he is about the only...

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