Impact (1949)

Great Film overall

I enjoyed watching this film and would recommend other to give it a try , (as I am) but this movie, although enjoyable to watch due to the better than average acting fails to add anything new to its storyline that is all too familiar to these types of movies.

There are moments in this movie where the great movie it could've been peek out... They're fleeting, here, but they're worth savoring, and they happen often enough to make it worth your while.

The movie turns out to be a little better than the average. Starting from a romantic formula often seen in the cinema, it ends in the most predictable (and somewhat bland) way.

Brian Donlevy and Helen Walker do quite well in Impact, which I recently saw in a longer version on Retro TV network. But some of the characters in the second half seem unrealistic. Ella Raines plays a female auto mechanic, not a likely occupation in the forties, even when Rosie the Riveter was popular. It just seemed to be a plot device to help Walter Williams recover from his amnesia.Charles Coburn plays a police detective, certainly a change from the chubby character parts in Frank Capra comedies. The musical score has flaws. I'm not sure it was in the original film, but it cues to the most sweetest and romantic tone while Irene Williams plots to murder her husband so she can elope with another man, and continues to do so after her scheme is revealed and she tries to cover it up.

Impact delivers a noir story of betrayal, entrapment, and fear. The ambivalence of the San Francisco cityscape, with its majestic white- roofed buildings, crowned by Coit Tower, set against the claustrophobic alleys of Chinatown, mirrors the chasm between Donlevy's outwardly bright, sophisticated world, and his domestic turmoil, stirred up by the scheming Helen Walker as his unfaithful wife.Her plot to kill her husband backfires when her lover, Tony Barrett, thinking he has killed Donlevy, panics, and winds up dead himself. I agree with those who think that Donlevy should've gone to the police as soon as possible, instead of escaping to Idaho. I could see why he'd need some time to recover and figure out what to do; but why literally walk away from his magnificent career to become a drifter?Allowing for all that, why, when he does return to San Francisco, does he make up such an implausible cover story? There's no point in coming back unless he wants to clear himself from suspicion that he had anything to do with Barrett's death, but he momentarily succeeds only in creating more suspicion about himself.Finding the fetching Ella Raines, and her idyllic small town life, was definitely worth it, though. Even though the Larkspur interlude seems on another planet from the unresolved crime in S.F., Donlevy is never really free from the city's noir grasp. Impact loses its edge only at the very end. Once legally exonerated, Donlevy is free to marry Raines, magic dust and all.

This is quite an exquisite example of film noir, made during a dark time in American history and during a year that several dozen were released of varying quality. It surrounds the seemingly happy marriage of industrialist Brian Donlevy and sophisticated Helen Walker, brought to its knees through her infidelity and ending up with a bump on his head, the violent death of her murderous lover and her arrest as evidence against her mounts.Where is Donlevy as all this takes place on the very naked streets of San Francisco? Hiding out in Utah, falling in love with sweet but independent Ella Raines, that's what. Charles Coburn adds his scene stealing showmanship as the detective putting all the pieces together, aided by Raines as Donlevy makes his presence known, arrested through circumstantial evidence that frees his wife, the vindictive Walker. Great location footage, fantastic sets and costumes and little twists and turns make this up there with "Laura", "Double Indemnity", "Out of the Past" and "Dark Passage" as a classic of the genre, even though it doesn't have an equal reputation as those others. An independent film that has ended up in the public domain, this has a surprisingly excellent print. The exotic Anna May Wong has a tiny bit pivotal part as a key witness. This is one I've seen several times and now consider a total sleeper worthy of further study.

Successful businessman Walter Williams (Brian Donlevy) loves his pretty wife Irene (Helen Walker) more than anything. Little does he know she's plotting with her lover to kill him. During the murder attempt, Walter is hit hard on the head but lives. The other guy, however, is killed in a car crash and burned beyond recognition. Believed to have been the man killed in the crash, Walter decides not to come forward. Instead he goes to work as a mechanic in the garage of Marsha Peters (Ella Raines). When Irene is tried for his murder, Walter must decide whether or not to reveal he's still alive.Brian Donlevy is pretty good. He's at his best when his character is angry or edgy. The sappy romantic stuff doesn't fit him well. Helen Walker is a particularly hissable villainess. Lovely Ella Raines is the good girl. There's no meat to the part but she does well with what she's given. Charles Coburn plays the detective out to get to the bottom of things. He's always fun. Arthur Lubin's direction in the first half is great film noir. I loved the scene where the lover tries to kill the husband. The whole thing was brilliantly executed. Then something happens and it's like a separate movie. The second half is much less like noir and more like a standard crime melodrama where a girl has to prove her guy is innocent of murder. If the entire picture had been like the first half, I'd say it was one of film noir's best. But it isn't. It's still an enjoyable movie with some good twists and turns.