IMPACT: bowled over by Ella Raines

I came for the story and stayed for the star.
There's the makings of a tight little murder thriller in 1949's IMPACT but unfortunately it's overlong and let down by plot holes so large you could drive a fully-laden furniture truck through them with tailgate down, and the terrible miscasting of one of Hollywood's finest

character actors of the 1940s.
Charles Coburn was undeniably versatile but even his talents don't stretch to playing a plausible Irish-American police detective. Quite why this role wasn't given to one of the hundreds of supporting actors who earned their living playing this stock type is a mystery, but Coburn's obvious discomfort and inability to maintain a consistent accent are a definite hindrance to the willing suspension of disbelief.
This piece of miscasting, however, is but a minor footnote when placed in the context of the bigger story which even the the most willing of disbelief suspenders will find mighty hard to swallow.
Brian Donlevy plays tough-talking businessman Walter Williams who narrowly escapes with his life when his wife's boyfriend tries to murder him on a lonely mountain road somewhere between San Francisco and Denver. Moments later the boyfriend's killed in a firey crash and his body burnt beyond all recognition. The cops think the ashes are Williams' and put his wife on trial for murder, while Williams assumes a new identity and finds work as a garage mechanic in an idyllic Idaho town. He's so eaten up with bitterness at his wife's betrayal that he's prepared to see her jailed for a crime she didn't commit, until the burgeoning love of the garage owner (yes, she's a woman!) persuades him to go to the police and tell them the real story - at which point he finds himself on trial for the boyfriend's murder, and there's still 30 minutes of plot to go.
All these convolutions are fine as long as you don't think too deeply about them. Even shallow thoughts will root out the inconsistencies and implausibilities that'll have you shouting at Coburn and his fellow detectives "Why don't you ask the 2 guys driving the furniture truck what they saw?!"
Having established that the film's too long, the plot doesn't make sense and they've got the only actor who couldn't do a credible Irish accent playing an Irish-American cop, you making be wondering what exactly is the motivation for investing precious time in this movie?
Two words - Ella Raines.
My god this woman is beautiful!

From the first seconds of her first appearance, dressed in mechanic's overalls, her hair tucked under a hat and her face smudged with oil as she works on a car engine, I was smitten. Not only is she the sexiest car mechanic you are ever likely to encounter, but she's adorable too. She's so adorable she even manages to convince us she finds short, stocky Brian Donlevy desirable and, heck, if a man who's as wide as he is tall can set Miss Raines' heart a-flutter then surely there's hope for the rest of us guys!
It doesn't hurt either that she can act. Her belief in the plot remains total, even as it descends into the realm of nonsense, cliches and borderline racism in it's demeaning depiction of the character played by veteran Chinese-American actress Anna May Wong.
Whatever else IMPACT is, it's not film noir, despite what some other film review websites would have you believe. It's not just that there's way too much daylight and sunshine, but Walter Williams is no existential anti-hero battling vain against a pre-ordained fate. He's a stock Hollywood crime drama/thriller character grappling with an increasingly unlikely set of circumstances of the kind unfortunately found in way too many B-movie dramas of the period. IMPACT would like to be a film noir but it doesn't meet the requirements.
It does, though, have the wonderful Miss Raines, and that'll do for me.