Carol, known as “Kansas”, has finally found the woman who can provide the exculpating alibi for her boss and secret crush, who has been unjustly sentenced to death for the murder of his wife. Now she learns from the housekeeper that the long-sought woman does not receive guests due to a nervous condition. With her is the supposedly best friend of the condemned man – in fact the true murderer of his wife – who has already murdered several witnesses on account of Carol's search for the “phantom lady”. The viewer knows: Carol, who trusts the friend, is in mortal danger.

By the mid-1940s, the director of this film, Robert Siodmak, could already look back on an impressive œuvre and had tried his hand in various genres, first in Germany, then in exile in France and the US. Theretofore, his films had alternated between being expensive and cheap, artistic and commercial. Phantom Lady ushered in his most successful creative period. In the following years, he filmed multiple films noirs that set standards in Hollywood, including The Spiral Staircase (Ger. Die Wendeltreppe, 1945), The Killers (Ger. Rächer der Unterwelt, 1946) and Criss Cross (Ger. Gewagtes Alibi, 1949).