Impact (1949)

Posted by Dave G

Brian Donlevy is happily married San Francisco automobile mogul Walter Williams, and Helen Walker his apparently devoted wife Irene. They live happily ever after. Oh, if only things were that simple …

There’s one slight problem: dear Irene is sick of her hubby. She schemes with her secret lover to have him bumped off during a long car journey, but the plan goes awry. Walter takes a tyre-iron to the head and tumbles into a ditch, but secret lover fella is panicked by a passing truck and gets himself killed in a car wreck while fleeing the scene. Walter, evidently possessed of a steel-plated skull, wakes up later with a headache and a little case of amnesia.

Stumbling upon a small Idaho town, Walter’s luck soon changes. He bumps into garage owner Marsha Peters (Ella Raines) who, impressed by Mr Amnesiac’s skills as an auto mechanic, offers him a job. Back in San Francisco, meanwhile, Charles Coburn’s crusty old detective Quincy is investigating that flaming wreck on the highway – and assumes that the body is that of Walter Williams.

With Walter and Marsha beginning to fall for each other, newspaper reports of his “death” jog Walter’s memory, as Det. Quincy’s continuing investigations lead him to suspect Irene of her husband’s murder. Will Walter extract revenge by letting her be convicted? Or will Marsha persuade him to do the right thing and return to San Francisco? For any first time viewers reading, I’ll leave you to find out – Impact has a few more twists left before the end …



OK, Impact is nobody’s idea of a classic, but it’s a highly enjoyable sort of diet-noir, with more than enough points of interest to warrant a look. The plot is an irresistibly outrageous series of coincidences, a melting pot of almost every noir staple you could want: a femme fatale, attempted murder, amnesia victim, police investigations, false accusations, reluctant witnesses. Then there’s the cast: Brian Donlevy is no Bogart, but he does a solid job in the lead; Helen Walker is in her element as the callous, duplicitous wife; a mischievous Charles Coburn is reliable support as the police detective; and of course there’s Ella Raines as the world’s cutest grease monkey - they sure don’t look like her at my local Kwik-Fit.

The film isn’t 100% noir: it doesn’t possess enough of the look, with too much of the action set away from the big city, in broad daylight. The ending is also atypically upbeat (not that I mind a happy ending once in a while). That said, the film has some nice location work in the City by the Bay, and boasts a few great noir sequences, notably the atmospheric murder attempt on Walter Williams while changing a flat tyre on a dark, deserted highway.

Impact is out there on a decent quality DVD from Image. I wouldn’t try and claim it as a knockout noir, but for an engaging diversion you could do far worse.