The 80% Unavailable to Stream Instantly that Breaks Your Heart
Impact (1949)
directed by Arthur Lubin
rating: 3 out of 5 cravats
on DVD from Netflix
The same day that Netflix announced their price jump, they sent me the 7th movie on my queue (Goin' South and disc 4 of Farscape's first season, among others, were apparently in sudden demand), which happened to be this. And, like the last film they mailed out of order, Impact begins great and kind of stalls. Helen Walker, as the wife of a rich man who works all the time, forgets how good she has it and plays around with a dull little sleaze who nonetheless likes her company, or at least her money, and makes sure to call every day.
The murder's been planned before the movie begins, but the boy toy isn't quick enough to pull it off, and Brian Donlevy, too old to play the romantic side of hard-charging executive Walter Williams, wakes up in a ditch with amnesia, his would-be killer charred to a crisp in an unplanned encounter with an oil truck not half a mile down the road. He stumbles east on a moving truck and finds himself in Potato Country, Idaho, where the memories return but the revenge motive festers. But Lord love a duck, that local mechanic is Ella Raines, a widow who wouldn't know a wrench from a headlight, saddled with her dead husband's debts just the same. Walt tinkers his way into taking over the business, and the thought struck me that more great movie scenes have been set at gas stations than almost anywhere else.
I loved Ella Raines the first time I saw her in Phantom Lady, but "honest grease monkey" relies too much on her acting simple and not enough on looking like your favorite double-crossing star-crossed suspect. Overalls don't do much for a pair of legs, and even her character's name is boring: Marsha Peters. Marsha, of course, will take Walt as he is, though she no doubt sleeps at the Ritz-Carlton when she comes to his aid in San Francisco. There she meets Charles Coburn, as Lt. Quincy, who goes around collecting all kinds of illegal evidence with a gut's helping of that Coburn family charm.
So what begins as a seedy conspiracy winds up a love song to Idaho family values and jokes about the local VFD. Jason Robards is the judge at the trial - the trial goes on forever - but you wouldn't know it if you didn't stay for the credits. My next #7 is Night Moves, starring Gene Hackman's mustache, and streaming more Friday Night Lights at half the cost of renting looks better all the time.
directed by Arthur Lubin
rating: 3 out of 5 cravats
on DVD from Netflix
The same day that Netflix announced their price jump, they sent me the 7th movie on my queue (Goin' South and disc 4 of Farscape's first season, among others, were apparently in sudden demand), which happened to be this. And, like the last film they mailed out of order, Impact begins great and kind of stalls. Helen Walker, as the wife of a rich man who works all the time, forgets how good she has it and plays around with a dull little sleaze who nonetheless likes her company, or at least her money, and makes sure to call every day.
The murder's been planned before the movie begins, but the boy toy isn't quick enough to pull it off, and Brian Donlevy, too old to play the romantic side of hard-charging executive Walter Williams, wakes up in a ditch with amnesia, his would-be killer charred to a crisp in an unplanned encounter with an oil truck not half a mile down the road. He stumbles east on a moving truck and finds himself in Potato Country, Idaho, where the memories return but the revenge motive festers. But Lord love a duck, that local mechanic is Ella Raines, a widow who wouldn't know a wrench from a headlight, saddled with her dead husband's debts just the same. Walt tinkers his way into taking over the business, and the thought struck me that more great movie scenes have been set at gas stations than almost anywhere else.
I loved Ella Raines the first time I saw her in Phantom Lady, but "honest grease monkey" relies too much on her acting simple and not enough on looking like your favorite double-crossing star-crossed suspect. Overalls don't do much for a pair of legs, and even her character's name is boring: Marsha Peters. Marsha, of course, will take Walt as he is, though she no doubt sleeps at the Ritz-Carlton when she comes to his aid in San Francisco. There she meets Charles Coburn, as Lt. Quincy, who goes around collecting all kinds of illegal evidence with a gut's helping of that Coburn family charm.
So what begins as a seedy conspiracy winds up a love song to Idaho family values and jokes about the local VFD. Jason Robards is the judge at the trial - the trial goes on forever - but you wouldn't know it if you didn't stay for the credits. My next #7 is Night Moves, starring Gene Hackman's mustache, and streaming more Friday Night Lights at half the cost of renting looks better all the time.
posted by NPK at 8:34 AM
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