Impact (1949)

Memorable, crazy movie

Just perfect...

Highly Overrated But Still Good

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

the whole film suffered a sudden deterioration and death, and at the same time when his wife was escorted into the cops' room, the whole dialog became so stupid that had become unbearably ridiculous. 'on what charge?" asked by Williams was the exact groundless accusation. the screenplay simply became stupider and stupider. grand jury? give me a break. when Williams arrived larkspur, Idaho, the news reporting his death with his photos were on every newspapers, yet nobody seemed to recognize him, there were so many folks in that town holding newspapers yet no one noticed a stranger suddenly showed, this highly unlikely scenario only served the purpose for Williams to hook up with the wonderful widow who ran a gas station and car repair shop. before Williams back to s.f., the police already took his murdering wife into custody, but once he showed up, then the whole screenplay just turned into a stupid farce. what a waste of a good film that had the potential to be great, but then the stupidity simply turned beyond salvage.

Whoever thought that Brian Donlevy, usually a villain in films, could pull it off with a compelling performance as a faithful, successful husband to an apparent faithless wife who plots his demise with her lover. Of course, things go awry and the lover is killed instead.Donlevy goes into hiding a finds true love in another state at a job way below his capabilities. He does this to gain revenge on the faithless wife who is eventually tried for murder. Changing his mind, he returns only to have the wife turn the tables on him as he accused of killing her lover instead.Charles Coburn is miscast here as the detective who believed Donlevy.

The one note style and delivery from the Director turns this Noir wannabee into a rather routine melodrama with an interesting story and characters that are fleshed out and left to wander around with very little impact on the audience.It is all so lightly lit and so lightly handled that it moves smoothly (not like a Film-Noir) from one scene to another and one plot turn to another with very little suspense and even less attachment.It just plays out in a professional manner and it cuts like a butter knife and has about as much impact as a pulled punch. It is so routine in its presentation and so bland in its execution that it becomes a false promise of real suspense and veers from its collision course by simply and nonchalantly turning the wheel.In the end it is a programmer with a paid by the week look and is a quota system product with very little integrity or artistic relevance. On a final note. This is NOT FILM-NOIR and can only be mentioned as maybe a passing vehicle on its way to that destination but detours to safe ground and seems content to be there.

I was on a noir kick recently and Impact was one of the films that came up as a recommendation that I hadn't already seen. The plot offers a tough promise of revenge, with a man set up by his wife to be killed by her lover – only for the lover to be killed and the original target to go into hiding while his wife faces suspicion from the police. The plot suggests that there will be a dark edge to the film and a story that sees revenge and justice coming as a result of the attempted murder. In reality though what we get is a dramatic opening quarter, which culminates in the death of the lover, but afterwards the film becomes about Williams settling into a new life and a potential romance for an hour until suddenly someone (presumably a writer) reminds him of the actual plot and he goes back to San Francisco just in time to trigger a courtroom finale and race against time to get to the bottom of it all.This approach wastes the potential in the plot because the darker thriller aspect is crammed into the final 30 minutes or so, even if the opening section leading up to the murder is pretty dramatic and effective. Outside of these sections though we have plenty of padding without any real impact or point; I know that the new life is the narrative trigger to the final confrontation but mostly it doesn't have a flow to it and it goes on far too long for what it is. As a result my interest had waned by the time we got back into the main plot and the courtroom action seemed a little muted, rushed and lacking in real urgency or drama. It is a real shame because the plot summary offered so much more and i'm not sure why it ignored its own strengths for so much of the film.The cast are rather stiff and so-so, although this may be in part due to the material. Donlevy does some good work but mostly he isn't allowed to feel much – Raines is cute next to him but seems far too young to be in that role. Coburn is only ever calling it in and his character lacks, well, character. Walker is, in her deeds, a cold, manipulative and disloyal woman but yet she has no edge to her at all and she is pretty dull. This is a film where none of the cast really stood out or managed to rise above the material.Overall Impact is a missed goal. It has potential but it misses it by being melodramatic, overlong and really losing its focus in regards the plot around murder and betrayal. Could have been something but wasn't.