Plot
A murder witness runs from the murderer out to kill him; and, through the ordeal, a couple mend their marriage.The film title is actually misleading, as it is a man, not a woman, who is the one on the run.
The story takes place in San Francisco. Frank Johnson is an artist who is out walking his dog one night and happens to witness, from a slight distance, a gangland slaying when a car stops nearby. The passenger, Joe, threatens to extort the driver, Danny, seeking additional money for his favorable grand jury testimony.
As Frank watches, Danny fires a gun into Joe and keeps shooting even after Joe falls dead out the car door.
Noticing Frank, Danny takes shots at him. A neighbor calls police who arrive. Inspector Ferris learns that Frank, the sole witness, could definitely identify the killer in a lineup and detains Frank to be put into protective custody. But, although cooperative, looking at the bullet holes in the chest area of his shadow on a nearby wall—whether because of, or in spite of, having a heart condition, Frank soon panics and escapes on the run.
Ferris learns from Eleanor Johnson, Franks wife, that the marriage of several years has for a long time been on the rocks. It's "just like him, always running," she tells Ferris. "Running from what?" Ferris asks. "From everything," she coldly replies.
As the story moves on, Eleanor's feelings for Frank undergo a dramatic improvement.
Danny, masquerading as a reporter but actually the killer himself, worms his way into unsuspecting Eleanor's life.
In a club that Frank frequents, Sam, a waiter, gives a note from Frank to Eleanor saying that he will send her a letter c/o his workplace explaining his whereabouts.
Danny learns that Frank also gave a dancer, Suzie, a sketch of him, so he steals the drawing and pushes Suzie out a window to her death.
At Frank's workplace, the letter says that he is in "the place where he first lost her."
At first confused as to where Frank meant, finally Eleanor realizes that the location is on the beach near an amusement park. Frank, having waited all day, has just left, but at the last moment returns to encounter his wife.
However, unfortunately he is in mortal danger, as Eleanor has inadvertently led Danny the killer right to Frank. Will he survive the attack which ensues?
Reception
In 1950, the critic Bosley Crowther of The New York Times gave the film a generally positive review:
Since it never pretends to be more than it is, "Woman on the Run", which began a stand at the Criterion yesterday, is melodrama of solid if not spectacular proportions. Working on what obviously was a modest budget, its independent producers may not have achieved a superior chase in this yarn about the search by the police and the fugitive's wife for a missing witness to a gangland killing. But as a combination of sincere characterizations, plausible dialogue, suspense and the added documentary attribute of a scenic tour through San Francisco, "Woman on the Run" may be set several notches above the usual cops-and-corpses contributions from the Coast ... "Woman on the Run" will not win prizes but it does make crime enjoyable. [7]
In a more current assessment of the drama, reviewer Farran Smith Nehme in 2016 praised Sheridan's performance in Film Comment . [8] Also, according to film historian Philippa Gates, Woman on the Run is one of very few noir films foregrounding a heroine's quest, and especially one where "the heroine's quest is not necessarily complicated by [heterosexual romance ..., in fact] the love interests are absent for the majority of the story". [9]
