After an argument with his wife, engineer Scott Henderson (Alan Curtis) meets a mysterious woman (Fay Helm) in a bar and spends the rest of the evening with her. She seems to be just as hurt by something as he is, so he is willing to accept her refusal to tell him her name. When he arrives back home, a few cops and a strangled wife are waiting for him. The lead investigator, an Inspector Burgess (Thomas Gomez), seems quite convinced that Henderson is the killer. The engineer's alibi isn't as good as one would expect - anyone who has seen him together with the woman now denies ever having laid eyes on her, and that's enough to convince this film's justice system to sentence a man to death.
Only Henderson's assistant Carol (Ella Raines) believes in his innocence. The young woman is going to do just about everything (including flirting with Elisha Cook, jr.!) to help the man she secretly loves. Unfortunately, the real killer has no qualms about silencing a few people more if necessary.
Phantom Lady by Robert Siodmak is a very fine adaptation of a Cornel Woolrich novel. It's quite a bit friendlier than its source, but it is still a very fine and quite dark work that would recommend itself alone through its use of female characters as something a little different from the usual noir femme fatales. Carol is somewhat frightening in her perseverance - sure, she does everything she does for a good reason, but people are still dying around her, a fact she's obviously willing to accept.
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