IMPACT (1949)

The first fifty minutes of this Harry Popkin Productions film are the strongest. The implausible premise prevents keeps it from being an A-list picture. The pacing is more encouraging, however, as it sets up the impact on a husband whose wife hates him beyond his understanding. In this twisty script, Brian Donlevy is first-rate as a highly paid automotive production manager and loving husband. Helen Walker delivers a convincing performance, too, as many viewers would have wanted to reach out and slap her had the film been released in 3D. In a role before her career shift to television, Ella Raines adds a freshness to the film and more than enough encouragement for Donlevy's character. The musical score by Michel Michelet does a great job of enhancing the mood of most scenes with a restrained theremin when appropriate. Charles Coburn plays a police lieutenant with an intermittent, debatable Scottish accent whose mounting evidence convinces him that Walker is surely guilty of something. 

Walker's New England dialect works best when she is syrupy-sweet. It falters when she is angry. She is as devious and fraudulent as they come. She arranges her current male interest—call him “Fling Boy”—to pose as a family cousin and rendezvous with her husband. Fling Boy's cryptic conversation along a dark, dangerous and curvy mountain highway is awkward for Donlevy. Before a brief stop, the fake cousin had manufactured a slow leaking tire, later selecting the worst possible spot to fix a flat—on the narrow curve of a studio set. One passerby parks right in the middle of the road to offer aid. Surprising that this is not an accident-prone area. Fling Boy makes his move. Donlevy gets a concussion from a tire iron and rolls down the embankment.

Speaking of impact, Fling Boy escapes in a panic with Donlevy's Packard but he is pancaked by a gasoline semi, sending both cascading over a cliff. All done with obvious miniatures with resulting flames like those from a small gas fireplace. A Bekins moving van stops to put out the flames with a single extinguisher. Perfect for a toy semi. Conveniently, the moving van's rear loading doors had been open. Furniture and carpet hanging on for dear life. The film got no endorsements from Bekins. Donlevy climbs aboard to the next town. His phone call to his wife's relative reveals dear old cousin does not exist. Donlevy's subtle changes in facial expression are perfect. His six-year devotion to his wife has been foolishly wasted. It is a powerful scene as he emotionally breaks down in tears.

The headlines assume Donlevy is dead. But Walker cannot figure out why Fling Boy is not at their rendezvous point. Coburn uncovers her affair with Mr. Boy. Donlevy becomes a three-month resident of the small, rural town while Walker becomes a resident in a prison ward. Raines runs the town's service station and is taking a hammer to an engine amid Donlevy's grimaces. His impressive quick work as a mechanic gets Donley hired on the spot. In her second scene with Donlevy, she does her best Princess Leia with her hair twisted into stereo headphones. His decision to stay in tiny Larkspur, Wherever, may not make a great deal of logic, but he simply wants to disappear and his "death" made it easier. Raines is cast for a reason: to help transform his thinking and provide a happy ending. As their friendship grows, Raines convinces him to return to San Francisco and tell his story. It does not go as she expected.

After discovering who was burnt to a crisp in that Packard, husband and wife meet in the squad room as the music comes effectively to a crescendo during a close-up zoom of Walker's face. One can see the wheels turning in her warped mind as her facial expression changes from shock to loathing. Having developed into a liar, she accuses him of plotting to kill Fling Boy and then go into hiding with Raines. Right,  Donlevy convinced Fling Boy to deliberately crash into a semi. There is zero logic in killing the fake cousin as Donlevy knew nothing of the affair until he arrived in Larkspur. Walker's script of implausibilities is silly but no one noticed. Not even the director. Donlevy's convoluted story is no less hard to believe and he is arrested while Walker is released. Even knowing what the viewer already knows, the closing courtroom scenes still provide a few twists. Thankfully, Walker becomes a hypocritical idiot on the stand as she continues to bury herself with uncontrollable, outrageous denials. But it is her handwriting analysis that dooms her. Diverting blame, she plans to sue the Parker pen company, believing it was their fault all along.