IMPACT didn’t reflect a punchy title at the box office in 1949, a $1,200,000 gross tabbing lowly spot #178 among the throng of releases, not enough to cover the $900,000 cost. Retrospect raises its rep. A neat, unpredictable noir item with a cut-to-fit cast, it was directed by Arthur Lubin, shooting the script from Jay Dratler and Doris Davenport on locations in San Francisco and adjacent communities. Though Michel Michelet’s score occasionally gets overly lush and busy, the rest of the show flows.

“We haven’t got a chance. Doing the right thing never works out. I know. In this world you turn the other cheek and you get hit with a lug wrench.”

Respected industrialist ‘Walter Williams’ (Brian Donlevy, 48) looks to have it made. His power moves in business outflank opposition, his Nob Hill apartment is so capacious it’s practically a castle and he dotes on ‘Irene’ (Helen Walker, 28), his younger, cat-attractive wife. But Helen has an ace up her gown (literally) in a lover who poses as her cousin. In a business trip trusting Walter is maneuvered into giving the smug crud a lift. Kindness is replayed with being clouted unconscious by a lug wrench and left for dead. But bad luck cuts both ways, slamming the ‘cousin’ into a head-on collision with a gasoline truck. Irene and the public believe Walter dead: this is one of those oldies where huge headlines about minor stories blanket newspaper’s front pages. But, though a bit worse for the wear, he’s recovered from the assault: heartsick over the spousal betrayal, he takes on a new identity in a small town, working as a mechanic to garage owner ‘Marsha Peters’ (Ella Raines, sigh), a war widow. Their relationship tentatively grows, as does the investigation fox-smart San Francisco detective ‘Lt. Tom Quincey’ (Charles Coburn) conducts to discover what really happened in the car-truck wreck. Who’s burned-beyond-recognition body belonged to whom? And is Irene’s mourning over ‘dead’ Walter just well-honed harlot camouflage?

It’s really three stories in one: Walter’s set-up and the bungled outcome, his painful recovery and poignant second chance with ‘real deal’ Marsha’, and the face-the-music third act with a trial that throws a monkey wrench of remorseless legal jeopardy onto the head of a guy who was already knocked for a couple of loops. Ingredients: cheating spouse, attempted murder, accidental death by incineration, temporary amnesia, budding romance, false imprisonment, courtroom cornering, missing evidence, a reluctant witness, jaded cops, press & public lapping it all up.

Donlevy, given a chance to display more emotional range than his usual hard-case characters, is excellent, covering stunned disbelief, betrayal grief, shy recognition of sincerity and decency, fatality over seeming futility. Walker, whose rocky road personal life revealed a penchant for recklessness, has the right look and delivery to suggest self-serving heartlessness in action. Coburn for some reason affects an Irish-inflected voice, but his innate shrewdness mutes the slight vocal adjustment. And jewel-eyed Raines, 28, makes the found diamond promise of the ‘girl next door’ seem not just desirable but somehow possible. Granted, you just might have to get a concussion, endure cuckold humiliation and face the electric chair first, but those are the breaks, pal.

In support: Anna May Wong (back after a seven-year absence), Robert Warwick, Art Baker, Erskine Sanford, Tony Barrett, Mae Marsh, Sheilah Graham (the columnist, as herself) and Philip Ahn. 111 minutes.