Backlash (1947)

User Rating:

6.5/10   

Director:

Eugene Forde

Writer:

Irving Elman (writer)

Release Date:

1 March 1947 (USA)

Genre:

Film-Noir | Mystery

Tagline:

LOVE'S VIOLENT RECOIL! (original ad - all caps)

Plot:

A man tries to frame his wife for a murder that he has committed.

Cast

Jean Rogers	...	Catherine Morland
Richard Travis	...	Richard Conroy
Larry J. Blake	...	Det. Lt. Jerry McMullen (as Larry Blake)
John Eldredge	...	John Morland
Leonard Strong	...	Willis, the caretaker
Robert Shayne	...	James O'Neil
Louise Currie	...	Marian Gordon
Douglas Fowley	...	Red Bailey
Sara Berner	...	Dorothy, the maid
Richard Benedict	...	Det. Sgt. Tom Carey
Wynne Larke	...	Patricia McMullen
Susan Klimist	...	McMullen girl (outfielder)

Runtime:

66 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

USA:Approved (PCA #12059, General Audience)

Company:

Sol M. Wurtzel Productions

Movie Connections:

Spoofed in Hare Do (1949)

Nifty premise pretty much wasted in decrepit crime programmer

Backlash is a pretty decrepit programmer built upon a nifty premise: A jealous husband so hates his wife that he frames her for his own murder. He's a successful lawyer, middle-aged, grey and sporting a Thomas E. Dewey mustache, and, as such, indistinguishable from just about every other adult male in the cast (which may be among the most anonymous in the history of movies; the collective Q-rating of Backlash would be in the negative numbers).

When a burned-out car with a body in it turns up in a ravine, the police potter around trying to find out first who was killed and then who killed him. There was a cop-killer the lawyer saved from a murder charge; his law partner who owned him big money; the district attorney who may have been seeing his restless younger wife; another temptress connected to both the partner and the cop-killer; and so on. In fact there are a few too many red herrings squeezed into this compact (66-minute) can.

Surprisingly, Backlash boasts one fine scene which looks as though it was cut from a much better movie and spliced in by mistake. In a railroad yard at night, one of the principals meets up with a drifter who offers to share his bottle and some philosophical musings. It's filmed as an extended, highly shadowed two-shot that grows tighter and more oppressive as the talk turns to the murder case that dominates the headlines - and then to more urgent concerns. It's a sequence that makes Backlash almost worth a look.