Contra-ataque

I wasn't really familiar with any of the cast members in Backlash but despite a rather verbose script, I thought they all did a decent job and I found most of them likeable. I'm new to Jean Rogers but I liked her here. As for the male cast members, they seemed to all be styled to look exactly alike. So the story premise is good but it just doesn't go anywhere. I think there are just too many moving parts and characters to keep track of them all, particularly for a film with a comparatively short running time. Despite a solid cast Backlash just can't create enough momentum to make it worth the viewers time.

Where to begin? Well, it's not good, that's for sure. It's flawed in so many ways, it's hard to find much of anything good to say about it.

1) The premise is contrived. One of those movies that must have been written backwards with earlier scenes created afterwards only to help somehow find their way to the climax that was the only thing pitched to the studio to get approval to make it.

2) The plot is far too convoluted for its 66 minute run-time. Again, the whole movie is meant to lead us to the final act, whether it naturally leads there or not.

3) The dialog is ridiculous - stilted and overly dramatic.

4) Character development is nearly non-existent. Most everything we learn about any of them comes almost strictly from others' descriptions of them awkwardly jammed into the script to save time.

5) The male actors are fairly indistinguishable from each other. If you don't pay close attention it's easy to lose track of who's who.

6) Female lead Jean Rogers couldn't act her way out of a paper bag. She's very pretty, but her acting is wooden and she delivers her lines as though she's reading the script for the first time as practice for her elocution coach.

7) Supporting actress Louise Currie can't act either. Also pretty, though in that cold, slightly trashy sort of way. You know, the kind of girl you might want to see, but never be seen with.

8) The soundtrack is generic, and like the dialog, often becomes overly dramatic and even inappropriate - at times more irritating than properly mood setting.

9) The cinematography and sets belie the flick's obviously low budget.

10) The two bright spots, as far as players in the movie goes, are wasted and get the least screen time - Sara Berner as the maid and. Wynne Larke as the detective's wife.

This is strictly a late night TCM diversion when there's nothing else on and you can't get to sleep (it may help).

Yikes, but there's a load of dialogue in this film-noir. It's almost exhausting to listen to after a period of relentless chatting and precious little actual action. "Moreland" (John Eldrdge) features much more prominently in this detective yarn about his own murderer than you might expect. That's because it's told via a series of flashbacks as the pursuing police detective "McMullen" (Larry J. Blake) interviews all the suspects and tries to piece together the evidence from his widow "Catherine" (Jean Rogers), the DA "Conroy" (Richard Travis) and just about everyone else from within a ten mile radius of the crime. Thing is - there is a twist, and one hell of twist at that, and that leaves "McMullen" and his theories all well and truly up in the air. We are given enough clues to anticipate the denouement, but Eugene Forde still manages to keep us guessing for some of this - it's just that there's way too much verbiage and the retrospective style of storytelling is a bit repetitive after a while. None of the acting, or the writing, really sets the heather on fire and at times it felt like quite a long hour-long watch. Watchable, but forgettable.

I agree with everyone about that scene with Leonard Strong as the bum or hobo, a sort of philosophizing, theatrical proto-beatnik. Ad-libbing perhaps? And well shot. It's the only reason I came here to rate this. The rest was largely throwaway by comparison. I've watched the film noir titles from the '40s, and that part is worth watching, but perhaps it is improved by the comparative dullness of the other scenes.

This is a lightweight noir from 20th Century Fox's B division -- competent players, no major stars, Eugene Forde directing, with a nicely tangled plot. John Eldredge is dead and the obvious suspects are his wife, Jean Rogers, and his his business partner, Robert Shayne. His doctor reports he's been dosed with poison a couple of times, but he has not reported it at Eldredge's insistence, and Shayne owed him a lot of money. But there are some complicating factors and as cops Richard Benedict and Larry Blake follow the clues, the district attorney takes an interest. Is that actually Eldredge's corpse?

Fox would shut down B production the next year -- Sol Wurtzel, the division head, was almost universally despised as a vulgarian, and only the fact that his movies always made money kept him in business. However, the long post-war downturn in movie-going was starting, and Wurtzel would retire in 1948.