Backlash (1947)

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.