Backfire (1950)

The Worst Film Ever

There is, somehow, an interesting story here, as well as some good acting. There are also some good scenes

Great example of an old-fashioned, pure-at-heart escapist event movie that doesn't pretend to be anything that it's not and has boat loads of fun being its own ludicrous self.

A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.

Veteran Gordon MacRae is recuperating from wartime injuries in a hospital. His buddy Edmond O'Brien has been visiting him regularly but suddenly the visits stop. On Christmas Eve, Viveca Lindfors shows up to tell MacRae that his friend is hurt. When he's released from the hospital a short time later MacRae tries to figure out what happened to O'Brien, with help from pretty nurse Virginia Mayo.Solid film noir with a good cast and several twists & turns. Great role for MacRae, best known for musicals. His wife Sheila also appears in this. Edmond O'Brien, Viveca Lindfors, and Dane Clark are all good. Virginia Mayo is lovely but it's odd seeing her in black & white. She will always be a Technicolor goddess to me. She's enjoyable in this and has believable chemistry with Gordon MacRae. Ed Begley is terrific as the police captain who's also looking for O'Brien. He gets some great lines such as when he stops another cop from shooting at a fleeing suspect because "you might hit a taxpayer." It's something of a hidden gem among film noir movies. For some reason, it sat on the shelf for about a year and a half before it was released.

It's hard to resist making puns about the title, but i will. Instead i will use this space to explain why this is not a Noir movie, but a tepid murder mystery. "Pray tell us, oh Wise One!" Right then, are you sitting comfortably? Then i'll begin. Noir stories are all about moral ambiguity and moral choices. People doing the wrong things knowingly but still they can't help themselves. Or they can, but don't. Does this apply to this movie? Only if the O'Brien character had turned out to have betrayed his army buddy, or the cute nurse to have been in cahoots with the killer. Instead we are supposed to be wondering who the killer is, even if it's blindingly obvious as soon as he's on screen. "Excuse me sir, but why exactly are you in this story? You seem to serve no purpose whatsoever. "Ha! How wrong can you be!" And why didn't they make O'Brien the lead? And why, when so many superior noirs are gathering dust, was this put on DVD? Now that's a crime.

It isn't difficult to see why this film was held back from release for two years. On a strictly personal level, when I get to see a retorted film noir from Warner's with Edmond O'Brien, Dane Clark and Virginia Mayo, I'm in. But this wasted all of them along with a supporting cast including uncredited parts by some previously and later known stalwarts.It isn't really much of a film noir, borrows heavily from others and is quite poorly helmed by Vincent Sherman who completely mis-handles the actors and is lensed in a very lackluster fashion.If you are an O' Brien fan like me, he is a cameo on this pic and by the time it was released was a leading man. Dependable Dane Clark is used over the top of his skills and lovely Virginia Mayo is denied her chance to shine as the good girl. Gordon McRae isn't nearly as bad as some have said, but suffers from a directorial failure.I do feel the need to comment on a previous review above regarding a subtextual homosexual relationship between McRae and O'Brien. They have a total of less than 4 minutes screen time together and the rest of the film can only lead me to think that the reviewer may have a penchant for finding skeletons not in this particular closet.Vincent Sherman made some exceptional films "The Hard Way" comes to mind, but this is one of his least efforts.

The title, "Backfire," adumbrates the quality of the film. It's one of those generic titles that could mean anything. You know the type -- "Another Dawn," "Guns of Darkness," "Whirpool," "Danger Signal," "Fatal Bliss," "Lethal Panties: The True Story of the Victoria's Secret Murders". The movie is a talky, rather dull murder mystery about Gordon MacRae, who's been undergoing surgery for a couple of years in a VA hospital in Los Angeles, trying to clear his buddy, Edmond O'Brien, of a murder charge.It has an interesting cast -- Virginia Mayo, Ed Begley, Dane Clark, Viveca Linfors, and even John Dehner and John Ridgeley in small parts. The latter has only one or two lines. Caramba, he was a Warners stalwart during the war years, and here, with that mustache, he looks like an aged John Dillinger.But this is no film noir, unless we want to invent a new definition for the term. There is no femme fatale, no expressionistic photography, no evocative sets, no atmosphere of resigned despair. What it is, is a B murder mystery. Dump the post-war background, change the casting, and you've got a cheap thriller from the 1930s. Not Charlie Chan, maybe, but Boston Blackie or Dick Tracy.I was able to spot the mysterious villain shortly after he appeared, not because of an excess of ESP but because of the Inviolable Law of Excess Characters. The director keeps the murder's face hidden during his rare appearance so we know immediately that he's someone we've already met. And which character have we met that uses a well-known performer but seems to have nothing much to contribute to the narrative so far? In any case the structure is clumsy. There's a good deal of talk about money in the movie -- did Edmond O'Brien make off with someone's stash? -- but it's all a red herring.The performances are all professional except Viveca Lindfors. She's beautiful in a darkly Scandinavian way but her acting is wincingly stilted. Some ten years later she was to have a few small roles in which age had wrecked her good looks and she was immeasurably better.