Impact

Presumably this raw & racy little Butcher's quickie with a neat little sting in the tail, scripted by leading man Conrad Phillips (with the usual noisy jazz score and the cast once more buttoned up against the cold) is set in 1965, since the newspapers reporting the robbery with violence for which the hero spends a year in Wormwood Scrubs are dated November 1963.

This is a 1960s B movie short. It is a poor film which starts interestingly enough but quickly loses impact.

It is low budget that inspires to be some type of American gangster flick. It contains some straightforward performances, a dicey script with more holes than a colander.

It is rather surprising to see Ballard Berkeley better known as the Major in Fawlty Towers as a younger rather straight talking newspaper editor.

Conrad Phillips plays Moir, an experienced crime reporter who has been pursuing a gangster known as the Duke.

The Duke in retaliation fits him up for a train robbery and the police arrest him and he is sentenced to two years in jail. In jail Moir plots his revenge.

I have big doubts how the police would think a well known crime reporter can suddenly get involved in a train robbery.

As for the revenge plot. The climax takes place in a cold storage warehouse. It is underwhelming in its sheer hokeyness. I think the filmmakers got bored as it suddenly ends.

Butcher's Film Productions are the chaps behind a series of low-rent, low budget British thrillers made throughout the 1950s and '60s, but IMPACT is very much a lesser product even by their low standards. This is a lifeless thriller with a simple storyline and not much in the way of incident or intrigue to recommend it.

The storyline sees journalist Conrad Phillips being framed and sent to prison for a crime he didn't commit. He's eventually released, at which point he swears revenge on the man responsible: crime boss George Pastell (Hammer's THE MUMMY). Unfortunately the revenge plot is hardly an exciting one, and despite a fist fight or two this is very low key and a film where barely anything happens.

The film features a role for Ballard Berkeley (FAWLTY TOWERS's Major) as a newspaper editor and a few scene-setting moments of the era. Pastell is the best thing in it and the only person who seems to be making an effort in terms of his performance. This is still entirely forgettable, though.

Impact feels very much a product of its times. There's definitely a 60's vibe to much of the proceedings here - the slightly upbeat jazzy score upfront and in the background, a hip swinging lounge with musical entertainment. Reporter is set up by someone he's reporting on, although the set-up and follow through consequences are not wholly realistic, but I feel this can be overlooked. Released from his prison term the reporter in determined to get revenge. Most of the cast is fine and does a decent job with the material they are given, Phillips and Marlowe in particular are good. There is a slight plot question/twist toward the final section of the film. Impact is not great film by any means, but at a tidy 61 minute run time, I think it was time well spent.

A routine quickie offering from the Butchers studio that doesn't exactly catch fire. Conrad Phillips is always watchable and does well with his role as a revengeful newspaperman out to get 'The Duke'. There is real chemistry in the scenes with sexy Anita West (of short lived BLUE PETER fame), but absolutely no chemistry at all with his rather underwritten girlfriend Diana (Linda Marlowe).

George Pastell plays the chief villain by the book- to many in my generation he will always be remembered as the twitchy train conductor in FROM RUSSIA WITH LOVE.

Otherwise the usual fun is to be had spotting familiar locations and actors who went on to greater fame in other vehicles- such as the ever-dependable Ballard Berkeley (FAWLTY TOWERS) and Mike - billed here as Michael - Pratt (RANDALL & HOPKIRK deceased).