Impulse

IMPULSE is another typical British crime film, one that plays out in a very low key way and which features an imported American star in order to bring American audiences in. This time around it's a permanently stressed out Arthur Kennedy, playing a happily married man who decides to embark on a dalliance when his wife goes away for the weekend.

His problems begin when he helps a stranded woman who turns out to be a femme fatale played by Constance Smith, whose real life was more torrid and tragic than any movie. Smith is excellent, by the way, and gives the best performance in the movie. Kennedy finds himself obsessed by her, but he doesn't know that she's involved with some ruthless criminals who think nothing of committing murder to get their way.

Before long the film settles in the typical Tempean Films format, with a lone hero, the attractive women helping and hindering him, the thugs seeking to kill him, and the police always one step behind. It's rather undistinguished stuff that lacks a decent storyline to see it through and I was bored more often than not. Cyril Chamberlain's weary cop encapsulates the audience's mood on this one. Watch out for a youthful Kenneth Cope making his debut film appearance early on.

I just wanted to correct one of the other reviewers on this sight: Charles de la Tour is not the pen name of Cy Endfield. He was a director in his own right who had children, one of whom is RISING DAMP actress Frances de la Tour. Something that would be rather impossible if he didn't actually exist!

Alan Curtis has reached a point in his life where he's bored with the everyday, his job and wife no longer satisfy him, one night he comes to the aid of a beautiful young woman Lila, and makes a decision that transforms his life.

I'm really surprised by the mainly mediocre reviews for this film, I personally really enjoyed it. It morphs from a melodrama with light comedy into a crime thriller, some really fine performances, Arthur Kennedy was wonderfully charismatic, and had a wonderful speaking voice. Jean St Clair was huge fun as the lusting next door neighbour.

Constance Smith was undoubtedly the star of the show, such a beauty. It was an interesting character study, how a perfectly decent and sorted man could be dazzled seemingly to commit murder by a beautiful woman. If I have one major criticism it would have to be the ending, why on Earth did't Joy throw his packed suitcase at him.

Though it is short and sweet, Cy Endfield still struggles with this slightly contrived British murder/mystery. The rather wooden Arthur Kennedy ("Curtis") meets the glamorous "Lila" Constance Smith) in an hotel bar whilst his wife "Elizabeth" (Joy Shelton) has gone away for the weekend. After what seems like the briefest of introductions, he forgets any semblance of the sanctity of his marriage vows and as a result gets tangled up with some murderous diamond smugglers before a predictable ending. It's not a great example of the genre, more a rather stodgily paced vehicle for a visiting American star.

Arthur Kennedy went to England to shoot this stinker, one of innumerable Baker & Berman local productions made before that B-movie team hit paydirt with "Jack the Ripper" and other more commercial projects. It did not get an American theatrical release, like so many quota quickies of the period.

He plays a realtor whose Good Samaritan aid to femme fatale Constance Smith gets him in big trouble. She's a night club singer involved with stolen diamonds and a boring set of uninteresting characters, hardly what B-movie fans cherished in the '40s and '50s -where's some snappy dialogue or fine acting?

Instead the movie plods along, and en route to a sort of happy ending, Kennedy's misadventures never ring true. Clearly a short shooting schedule, near-zero budget and lack of imagination accounts for this not worthy time-killer.

It's the duty of filmmakers to entertain or perhaps enlighten, but such drivel shot on automatic pilot is an insult to a paying audience, and fortunately US filmgoers were spared in this case. The director's credit is in question per IMDb, but hardly worth fighting for -I like to think that Cy "Zulu" Endfield was not responsible.

While his wife goes to London, a yankee (Arthur Kennedy) meets a beautiful lady (the sexy Constance Smith) and helps her with her damaged car. But everything gets more and more and more complicated. And she's so beautiful he cannot resist. Quite classic, but it's a true film noir story, directed with punch in usual settings but with so much efficiency, so many twists, as so often in british realistic film noir. Arthur Kennedy and Constance Smith live a strange love story, I wish the end would have been stronger. Yes, Cyril Enfield was a good director.