Monday 22 October 2018

IMPACT no stars

"Impact" is an okay murder yarn that starts off very well but which gets progressively sillier as it goes along. Brian Donleavy is the rich schmuck whose wife, Helen Walker, plans to murder so she can inherit his fortune and run off with her lover. However, it's the lover who ends up dead leaving Donleavy to ponder his future and whether he should take revenge or not. As soon as the then 72 year old Charles Coburn turns up as the investigating cop you know the movie is heading for trouble and by the time new girlfriend Ella Raines starts running around like Nancy Drew minus her Hardy Boys, things have gone fairly pear-shaped. Still, Donleavy makes a fairly personable hero and Walker was always good, particularly when she was being bad. Shorn of 30 minutes or so it might have made a tight little B-movie; as it is, it's drawn out way beyond its welcome.

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