Impact (1949)

An executive (Brian Donlevy) for a major corporation is the intended victim of a murder plot by his wife (Helen Walker, NIGHTMARE ALLEY) and her lover (Tony Barrett). But things go wrong when the husband is left for dead in a roadside ditch and the lover is killed in a fiery auto accident. The adulterous wife is put on trial for her part in her husband's death while the husband hides out in a small Idaho town. This noir has a most compelling premise but it lacks style. The director Arthur Lubin is most noted for his Abbott & Costello and Francis the talking mule comedies. It's a decent enough crime thriller but it starts to wear out its welcome after awhile. The romance between Donlevy and Ella Raines (second billed but she doesn't come in till the film's last hour) kills time more than anything else. Much more interesting is Walker as the duplicitous wife. Still, it's a satisfying noir in most ways but it needed to be darker, edgier. With Charles Coburn as the detective trying to break the case open, Anna May Wong, Mae Marsh, Sheilah Graham, Erskine Sanford and Philip Ahn.