My Name is Julia Ross

Directed by Joseph H. Lewis, My Name is Julia Ross follows Nina Foch’s title character as she finds herself in a progressively perilous situation after accepting a secretarial job with May Whitty’s suspicious Mrs. Hughes. Filmmaker Lewis, armed with Muriel Roy Bolton, delivers a slow-moving yet increasingly compelling thriller that does, at the outset, benefit substantially from the mystery surrounding Julia’s circumstances, and it’s clear, too, that the movie’s stirring vibe is heightened by Burnett Guffey’s atmospheric visuals and Foch’s top-notch work as the thoroughly sympathetic protagonist. (It doesn’t hurt, either, that Whitty and George Macready offer up menacing work as Mrs. Hughes and her volatile son, respectively.) And while the movie does, even at just 65 minutes, suffer from a small handful of lulls, My Name is Julia Ross, buoyed by several suspenseful set-pieces (eg Julia’s switcheroo with a pivotal letter), builds towards a surprisingly gripping final stretch that ensures it concludes on a memorable note – with the end result a first-class film noir that packs its fair share of surprising plot developments.

*** out of ****