Arrow Video, with
domestic sales and distribution expertise provided by MVD Entertainment Group,
has targeted Feb. 19 as the street date for a Blu-ray presentation of Joseph H.
Lewis 1945 film adaptation of the Anthony Gilbert (aka: Lucy Beatrice Malleson)
mystery thriller, “The Women in Red,” which was titled for the screen as My
Name is Julia Ross.
Nina Foch had done some
nice work during the war years in films such as The Return of the Vampire
(1943), Cry of the Werewolf (1944) and A Song to Remember (1945),
so Columbia Pictures elevated her to the lead as the title character, Julia
Ross, in this a down-on-her-luck London secretarial type — she suffered from an
appendicitis and has been out work.
It’s the post war period in
England and jobs are hard to come by, but she luckily lands an interview at the
Allison Employment Agency and Sparkes (Anita Sharp-Bolster — The
Lost Weekend, Scarlet Street, etc.), who runs the place, has a job for
her that seems too good to be true. If
she wants it, she will be the personal secretary to the very wealthy Mrs.
Williamson Hughes (played by Dame May Whitty — Best Supporting Actress
nominations for both Mrs. Miniver and Night
Must Fall). The position not
only pays very well, but includes room and board. She must start immediately!!
Without getting into all
of the details of this twist-and-turn thriller, let’s just say Julia has been
set up as a patsy. The agency was a
front and she was targeted because she resembles Mrs. Hughes’ son’s — George
Macready as Ralph Hughes — missing wife, Marion (who we learn has been
murdered).
In any case, Julia shows
up at her dream job, is drugged and all of her possessions, including her
clothes, are burned and she awakes in a strange and isolated place where
everyone thinks she is nuts and her name is Marion. Of course Ralph and his dear mom know
otherwise.
She has to figure out how
to escape the mansion-turned-prison before a very public “accident” or
iron-clad suicide can be staged so that the Hughes family can get off the hook
for a nasty murder — hey, what’s one more (in for a penny; in for a pound) —
and get back to being snobbishly important.
Tick Tock! Tick Tock!!
Bonus features include commentary
by film noir authority Alan K. Rode
(“Charles McGraw: Film Noir Tough Guy,” “Michael Curtiz: A Life in Film”) and
the featurette titled “Identity Crisis: Joseph H. Lewis at Columbia.”
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