Movie Review: Backlash (1947)

Synopsis: Prominent defense attorney John Morland is found dead in a crashed car, but police quickly determine it wasn't an accident and, instead, Morland had been murdered beforehand. The investigation leads to multiple suspects - Morland's wife, Catherine, his legal partner, James O'Neill, a wanted fugitive by the name of Red Bailey and even the district attorney, Richard Conroy.

Who's in it? The movie stars Jean Rogers, Richard Travis, John Eldredge, Douglas Fowley and Robert Shayne.

Review: I didn't have an opportunity to pre-select a movie for this morning because of getting home late last night (my daughter had another community theater performance). As a result, I picked Backlash solely because it was alphabetically one of the first movies saved in my library. As it turns out, it was a good choice.

This movie is a solid murder mystery. In addition to the mystery surrounding Morland's (Eldredge) decision to drive to San Francisco, there were a ton of viable suspects. His wife (Rogers) was believed to have attempted to poison Morland in the past because of a rumored affair with another suspect, District Attorney Conroy (Travis). However, while most of the evidence pointed in that direction, his partner, O'Neill (Shayne) had a financial motive while the criminal, Bailey (Fowley) had been in both Morland's car and cabin.

Oh, and just when I thought I had it all figured out and the mutilated body in Morland's car was actually Bailey and Morland was using the criminal to fake his death, the two detectives, Jerry McMullen (Larry J. Blake) and Tom Carey (Richard Benedict) came up with the same theory and quickly debunked it.

As a result of this, the movie was a lot less predictable than I thought it would be and, even though I did ultimately come up with the correct theory the second time around, I wasn't completely sure it was accurate until the very end. This in turn also meant just about anyone associated with Morland had the potential to commit murder again if they thought it was necessary.

The movie's ending also didn't disappoint. It set up some suspense while tying up the loose ends. While that might sound like the bare minimum for a film in this genre, you'd be surprised at how many I can't say that about.

Final Opinion: This is a solid murder mystery that makes full use of its 66-minute runtime. I had no regrets taking the time to watch it.

My Grade: A

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