Beware - spoilers!!!
This classic film noir takes some themes from Fritz Lang's classic Fury and exploits them a little farther.
It's not a mob after Spencer Tracy who think they've done him in. Here we have a rich businessman, a bored wife and a young lover who plot to get rid of the husband. But Tony Barrett the lover bungles the job and he gets killed when a train plows into his car.
As it turns out husband Brian Donlevy is only knocked unconscious from a hit on the head from a tire iron. But everyone thinks he's dead and dogged police detective Charles Coburn arrested wife Helen Walker and charges with conspiracy to murder Donlevy.
Donlevy is now several states away and living simply as a garage mechanic working and falling in love with Ella Raines. Donlevy underplays his role very well, a man numbed by the fact that his wife had actually plotted to murder him.
Sounds a whole lot like the issues covered in Fury on a personal level. There are a few more twists and turns in Impact however and they make the film an undiscovered sleeper in the noir genre.
Not to be missed if it is ever broadcast.
Sorry folks, was just watching the movie. Back now at 19:30.
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