Woman Wanted

Directed by George B. Seitz, Woman Wanted follows Maureen O’Sullivan’s Ann Gray as she escapes from police custody and spontaneously hides out with a young lawyer named Tony Baxter (Joel McCrea) – with the pair eventually pursued by both the law and vicious gangsters. It’s a fine premise that is, at the outset, employed to relatively watchable effect by Seitz, as the filmmaker, armed with Leonard Fields, David Silverstein, and Otis Garrett’s screenplay, delivers a briskly-paced endeavor that benefits from its snappy dialogue and thoroughly charismatic performances – with, in terms of the latter, O’Sullivan and McCrea turning in predictably magnetic work that enhances the better-than-average atmosphere. It’s exceedingly disappointing to note, then, that Woman Wanted eventually progresses into an increasingly tiresome and convoluted midsection, as Seitz slowly-but-surely places the emphasis on underwhelming action sequences and impossible-to-follow thriller elements – which, when coupled with an almost disastrously anticlimactic final stretch, ensures that the picture’s 67 minute runtime does begin to feel rather endless. The end result is a misfire that squanders its promising setup and the efforts of its talented cast, and it’s ultimately difficult not to wish Seitz had managed to maintain the easygoing bent of the film’s first act from start to finish.

*1/2 out of ****