ridiculous rating

A Disappointing Continuation

Simple and well acted, it has tension enough to knot the stomach.

.Like the great film, it's made with a great deal of visible affection both in front of and behind the camera.

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.

This film is fairly interesting and good. It surrounds the life of Walter Williams who is a married man - he was happy in his marriage but his wife Irene was not. Irene had a lover named Jim Torrence, together they plotted to kill her husband and make it look like a car accident while on his business trip. Things changed when Jim thought he had killed Walter and took off in Walter's car only to end up in a car wreck. Walter awoke and ended up in the back of a truck that was on the scene of the car wreck. Walter got off the truck when it stopped and found himself in a small town, read the headlines that he has been killed in the car wreck and decided to take a new life in that small town. The police are after Jim Torrence, who they think is still alive and Walter's wife Irene.This one makes for a good prime time film or just a lazy afternoon flick if you are looking for a crime mystery to watch.7.5/10

Ella Raines is a very good actress who did not get a lot of breaks in her career. She has talent, but it seems that she never really caught the shooting star type of role. This one gets close to it.There is a very good cast here with Donlevy and Coburn. The story is solid. The script is good and Arthur Lubin is here directing. The film noir here is solid. The story is by Jay Dratler .who wrote Laura among some other popular stories on film.It turn out this one is a good movie. It still does not make her a star, but it is a pretty good entry on her resume which has some other good films.The plot twists are enough to keep the viewer on the edge of their seat as in many a film noir, things do not go the way they are supposed too.

This wonderfully twisted tale of the events that take place before and after an attempted murder is both highly entertaining and full of surprises. It was written by Jay Dratler who also co-wrote the screenplays for other film noirs such as "Call Northside 777", "The Dark Corner" and "Laura" and his skills as a storyteller and a writer of snappy dialogue are both in strong evidence in this movie.Walter Williams (Brian Donlevy) is a wealthy industrialist whose wife Irene (Helen Walker) colludes with her lover, Jim Torrence (Tony Barrett) to murder him. She arranges for the two men to share a car journey to Denver during which they have to stop on a mountain road to change a wheel after a tyre (which Jim had previously damaged) suddenly blows. Jim uses the opportunity to hit Walter over the head with a wrench and leaves him for dead. As Jim prepares to continue his journey, a large van pulls up and the driver offers him assistance which he refuses, but this incident spooks him so much that he drives off in the car at high speed and accidentally crashes head-on into a tanker full of fuel. Walter regains consciousness in time to jump into the back of the van but soon passes out again.When the wreckage of Walter's car is later discovered and the occupant is so badly burned that he's unrecognisable, the presumption is made that Walter is the dead man and further evidence found by the police soon leads them to believe that Irene is culpable.Walter eventually arrives at the small town of Larkspur, Idaho where he's offered a job as a mechanic at a gas station run by an attractive young widow called Marsha Peters (Ella Raines). From a remark that Jim had made when he attacked him, Walter knows that his wife was behind the attempt on his life and so, when he reads in a newspaper about her arrest on suspicion of his murder, the opportunity to take revenge by doing nothing to help, becomes very attractive.Walter and Marsha fall in love and when she learns about what happened to him she persuades Walter to do the honourable thing and return to San Francisco to tell the police his story. Unfortunately, when he does this, further unexpected developments follow and he finds himself charged with the murder of Jim Torrence."Impact" is a film in which certain sharp contrasts are made. The city is compared unfavourably with the small town where people are much more friendly and supportive, the difference between the evil Irene and the kind and decent Marsha couldn't be more stark and Walter's conduct in his professional and personal lives are also incredibly different.When Walter first appears , he's seen as an extremely dynamic and forceful businessman but is then later shown as a very caring husband who Irene calls "Softy". He's also normally confident and direct in his manner but during his time in Larkspur, he goes through a period of confusion and self-doubt. The fact that Brian Donlevy is able to bring all these aspects of Walter's personality together in a believable way is very commendable and enjoyable to watch.Helen Walker and Ella Raines are both excellent in their roles and Charles Coburn provides the pick of the supporting performances as the veteran detective who's assigned to investigate the case.