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Anna May Wong, Brian Donlevy, Charles Coburn

They're one kiss away from MURDER! Millionaire industrialist Walter Williams is marked for murder by his sexy young wife and her seedy lover. When the insidious plot ends in a fiery disaster, Williams...( read more  read more... ) is thought dead. In reality, he finds himself without a clue as to who he is or what happened. But as his memory starts to return, his shattered life becomes a runaway roller coaster ride of suspense and excitement! Beautifully photographed on location in San Francisco, this hard-boiled drama snaps with smart dialogue, a hell-frosted broad and more twists than a rusty corkscrew. "Impact" is truly a forgotten film noir masterpiece.

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50% liked it

580 ratings

Unrated, 111 min.

Directed by: Arthur Lubin

Release Date: January 1, 1949

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DVD Release Date: March 7, 2000

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Flixster Reviews (35)

  • harrycaul
    June 14, 2009
    harrycaul
    There have been an inordinately high number of great movies set in San Francisco; alas, this is not one of them. Impact is a so-so b-movie which starts off as a film noir and finishes as a courtroom drama. Brian Donlevy plays a wealthy businessman, missing presumed ...( read more)dead after his wife and her lover's murder plot backfires, who hides out in small-town Idaho while the police investigation closes in on his spouse. The film works fine up until the attempt on Donlevy's life but falls rather flat thereafter, as Donlevy concentrates on becoming a pillar of an apple-pie community - cherry-pie, in this case - instead of exacting revenge on his faithless missus, which is what we'd expect him to do. Donlevy sleepwalks through the movie, but Helen Walker, as his wife, and Ella Raines, as the chirpy, tomboyish garage owner who takes pity on him, give it everything they've got.
  • groaningbitch
    April 28, 2008
    groaningbitch
    "impact" is a roughly produced film noir with a fading anna may wong who plays the servent of helen walker. the ambiguity of "impact" would be its mixture of two genres, film noir crossed with a moralistic do-gooder aura.

    the story is about a gullible lawyer who gets doublecro...( read more)ssed by his insidious spouse played by helen walker (also the evil psychiatrist who backstabs tyrone power in "nightmare alley"). the wife and her cuckold scheme to murder the lawyer in disguise of car crash upon the desolate highway...but things go astray, the cuckold dies of accident while the sap survives but suffers from temporal anmesia. then he tumbles over a small town to work as a fixer in a gas station run by a businesswoman played by ella rains. so they fall in love and he decides to report the crime instead of revenging his wife by the prosecuted murder charge from district attorney. but he gets accused by the wife for killing the cuckold so she could solicit her heritage from him....eventually the chinese servent played by anna may helps to enforce the justice.

    except helen walker's mean dame, the rest of cast is lackluster. the subplot of the heart-shape embroidered shirt is sorta quirkily amusing. inadequately it tries to redeem its protagonist under a positive light of second chance, and ella rains would be the fair woman who provides the saving grace to a shattered man. who wanna see self-reform in film noir anyway? just like noir enthusiasts embrace the rot of human nature well that people enjoy witnessing robert mitchum fall into abyss twice in "out of the past"...

    besides, anna may wong is obviously losing the edges she used to have in the prime 30s, underused and withered, settling for secondary roles of inferior stereotype in the background of chinatown.
  • 339z
    June 14, 2009
    339z
    wow umn just seen this movie 4 the 1st time n think that this is a good movie 2 watch.....its got a good cast of actors/actressess thorughout this movie...i think that anna may wong, brian donlevy, charles corburn, ella raines, helen walker, robert warwick play good roles/parts t...( read more)hroughout this movie...i think that the director of this classics/drama/romance movie had done a great job of directing this movie because you never know what 2 expect throughout this movie...i think that this is a good 1940's movie 2 watch its got a good cast throughout n its really well directed as its filmed in black n white
  • astree3
    May 6, 2007
    astree3
    Brian Donlevy, in an underrated movie. Ella Raines steals the picture.

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