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The dislocation felt by returning servicemen was one of the chief topical themes of the film noir cycle. After being primed to take risks but no prisoners in the anarchic and violent theaters of World War, many found it hard to ratchet back down upon their return to an often jarringly altered society. Amnesia was the primary noir metaphor -- having to reconstruct an entire past life from scratch. Others faced having to cope with disabilities; still others, having spent the "best years of their lives" in hellholes abroad, weren't about to wait for the high life on the installment plan.

Backfire forgoes amnesia for the latter two categories. Gordon MacRae recuperates from spinal-cord injuries in a veterans' hospital until he can get out and buy a ranch with army buddy Edmond O'Brien, who abruptly vanishes. Upon release, MacRae sets out to track him down through the labyrinthine underbelly of postwar Los Angeles. It looks like O'Brien got mixed up with heavy gamblers, and is in fact wanted for apparently murdering a syndicate kingpin. MacRae is aided in his quest by his nurse (Virginia Mayo, good as a good gal for once) but thrown off the trail by a mysterious foreigner (Viveca Lindfors, as a discount-chain Ingrid Bergman). But, as always in the noir scheme, things are rarely what they at first seem....

No masterpiece, Backfire nevertheless keeps up the pace and the suspense, drawing (like Somewhere in the Night) on themes and formats that were central concerns of the cycle.

Backfire (1950)

A complicated, interesting and sometimes forced story about two ex-G.I.s with dreams of a ranch. But the realities of post-War America set in, with shades of old gangsterism (this is a Warner Bros. film, remember) and with siren calls from lonely women and a murder unexplained. The story is made more complicated (and interesting) by layering a number of flashbacks into the flow, and you have to really pay attention to keep the chronology straight. But this is a plus, in the end, because it's a richly dense movie you could easily watch a second time. Just the range of scenes is ambitious, from gorgeous pouring rain at night to a boxing arena to a sunny army rehab swimming pool to, of course, a detective's office. The photography (under Carl Guthrie) layers up many scenes, some are visually sensational (he also shot the great "Caged" a few months later).

Viveca Lindfors makes some stunning appearances here as Lysa, and you can see why Hollywood thought she might make a new Swedish import like Ingrid Bergman. And she can act, too, with an emotional intensity and range that makes you wonder why her career didn't, in fact, take off. Almost to set her off as the mysterious brooding beauty, the lead woman is the cute, cheerful, all American Virginia Mayo, who plays nurse and friend Julie perfectly. In a way you see in just these two how well cast, and typecast, two women can be, and how the director, Vincent Sherman, works so well with their differences, though we all wish for more of Lindfors.

Likewise for the two leading men. The main star is a pretty boy, and a decent actor, Gordon MacRae as Bob, but MacRae lacks presence and magnetism, and maybe true ability. At first we accept this because Bob is just lying in a hospital bed, with Julie cheerfully attending. But then up he gets, pain all gone, and the real movie starts. His best friend is the underrated noir staple Edmond O'Brien, who isn't pretty at all, but trying, I think, to be something of a Bogart, a regular guy named Steve, with guts and depth and reserve.

With Lindfors, he's still the best performer here, and they have a few scenes together that are the best acted, if not the best written, parts of the movie. If we take the Bergman/Bogart comparison out of "Casablanca" to an extreme here with Lindfors/O'Brien in "Backfire," we can see their scene by the piano as a kind of wartime flashback, shoehorned into the movie for no good reason except to say they must be fated to meet and fall in love. But this isn't easy when someone else already loves the girl, and that someone has a gun, and a warped mind.

Why exactly this doesn't all come together is one of the mysteries of the movies, where there are so many pieces to a puzzle that contribute successively, and concurrently, and getting them perfect is really really hard. Ultimately it's the director we look to for the big decisions (as well as the day to day control), and Sherman had shown once before his mastery of a complex story in "Mr. Skeffington." In a way, this one is just so fractured, following the film noir penchant for flashbacks and femme fatales and confusing plots, it would take a miracle, or a Michael Curtiz, to pull it off (I'm thinking "Mildred Pierce" more than "Casablanca" here).

Still, it's a great film to get lost in, and to pull out the subtleties where they really work well.

This was an interesting film featuring Edmund O'Brien as a man who seemingly disappears while being investigated for murder. Virginia Mayo plays the nurse of O'Brien's friend, Gordon MacRae who is laid up in the hospital after having multiple spine surgeries. MacRae was wounded in battle during WWII. It is not exactly said how long MacRae was in the hospital, but it was seemingly a long time--long enough for O'Brien to disappear, MacRae and Mayo to fall in love, and the very involved storyline to have taken place. I was also interested in seeing MacRae in a noir. Prior to this, I'd only seen the films he made with Doris Day. MacRae and Mayo are the stars of Backfire.

In this film, they team up to locate O'Brien and determine if he really committed the crimes he's been accused of and to see if he still has MacRae's money. MacRae and O'Brien had planned to pool their funds and build and operate a ranch in Arizona after MacRae's out of the hospital. Most of the film's narrative is told via flashback as MacRae and Mayo meet and talk with people who saw O'Brien. When the characters are introduced, they tell a flashback as to how they knew O'Brien. Each of these stories provide clues as to the reason behind O'Brien's disappearance and also provide clues behind who could have possibly committed the murder(s) O'Brien is accused of. The narrative bounces back and forth between flashback and current time as MacRae and Mayo investigate O'Brien's disappearance.

I thought this was a pretty decent noir and I especially liked the ending. Dane Clark (in a very surprising role), Ed Begley, Viveca Lindfors, and MacRae's wife, Sheila, round out the cast.

Bob Corey, a war veteran recovering in a V.A. hospital for a spinal injury, becomes alarmed when his war buddy Steve Connolly vanishes. One night while under sedation his visited by mysterious woman who informs him that Steve has been seriously injured and is in trouble with the law. Bobs nurse convinces him its all a dream. But when Bob is released from the hospital, he is questioned by police who want to know if he knows where he thinks Steve can be found. The police inform Bob that Steve is suspected of killing a gambler. Bob then sets out to find Steve and find the real killer. Along the way bodies pile up and Bobs search for leads him into the clutches of mysterious mobster named Walsh.

BACKFIRE! is a well directed, photographed and acted noir mystery which holds one interest throughout. The ending comes as quite a surprise when the identity of Walsh is revealed. The cast is excellent, including many of the minor players. It was nice to see Virginia Mayo playing a good girl for a change in a film like this. The writers of this film must have had an obsession with spinal chord injuries, since both male leads suffer such injuries during the film.

A common cultural theme providing subtext for many a film noir was the alienation felt by servicemen returning from WWII to a world that had adapted itself to their absence. But that theme usually remained just that -- subtext. Rarely was it dealt with as overtly as in "Backfire," a modest entry in the genre from 1950, and this fact alone makes this otherwise forgettable film notable.

Bob Corey (Gordon MacRae) and Steve Connolly (Edmond O'Brien) are war buddies, Corey layed up in a veterans' hospital recovering from a spinal injury, Connolly sticking close and providing him moral support. The night before Corey's release, while in a drugged haze, Corey receives a visit from a strange, exotic woman (Viveca Lindfors), telling him that Connolly has been injured himself and is asking for Corey. The next day, as he leaves the hospital, Corey is pulled into the police station, where the head of the homicide bureau (Ed Begley) tells him of the murder of crime boss Solly Blayne and evidence incriminating Connolly as the chief suspect. Corey sets out to find his friend in an attempt to clear his name, aided by his girl Friday, nurse Julie from the veterans' hospital, played fetchingly by Virginia Mayo.

What's most interesting about "Backfire" is that though the film gives both men nominal love interests, they're much more interested in each other than either is about anyone else. It would be easy to read homosexual subtext into this film, as it is in many films noir, but it's not really played that way in the movie. The relationship between Corey and Connolly is that of two men who have had to rely on one another in literal life-and-death situations and who now do not know how to rely on anyone else.

It was refreshing to see MacRae in a film like this -- I only really knew him from his string of 1950s musicals, and he equips himself well. O'Brien, a frequent presence in films of this sort, is right at home. And Mayo is a doll, looking for all the world like a 1940s version of Laura Linney. The climax of the film is a rote shoot-em-up, but as always with movies like "Backfire," the journey is a lot more fun than the destination.

Grade: B

Although Gordon MacRae was signed for musicals by Warner Brothers, Jack Warner like the rest of his fellow Hollywood moguls did not believe in keeping players idle. With no musical properties at the ready, MacRae starred in Backfire about a World War II veteran trying to locate a friend whom the police suspect of murdering gambler Richard Rober.

The friend is Edmond O'Brien and MacRae thinks so because he got a woman visitor with a mysterious foreign accent while he was still all doped up on anesthetic from a final operation. The visitor turns out to be Viveca Lindfors and MacRae despite warnings from police captain Ed Begley is on the hunt, aided and abetted by his nurse Virginia Mayo who took a real liking to MacRae while in her care.

Backfire is not a mystery as such because the more MacRae looks, people get bumped off right and left. When MacRae is finally closing in on solving the mystery, the suspect is rather obvious.

For the most part however Gordon MacRae confined himself to musicals of varying quality and later on left the Hollywood scene altogether for nightclubs. Still he did show he could handle a straight acting job in Backfire and Warner Brothers did give him a strong supporting cast. Backfire still holds up well for today's audience.

Perhaps not the best of film Noir, but more than serviceable with a fine cast and a haunting performance by Viveca Lindfors. What a babe when young and quite exotic in this role. "Backfire" may well have been written with the matinée crowd in mind as it has many weaknesses, but the director, Vincent Sherman, was efficient in the sequences of action and brutality. Gordon McCrae was a little flat, but I think the studio was trying to give this singer the benefit of the doubt. That has always been the way of things in the movies: give the popular singers of the day a chance to become known in some other milieu. It might have worked better if Edmund O'Brian had played the lead, but such was not the case. Anyway, a slightly better than average trip down the darkened alleyways of Noir's mean streets.

Vincent Sherman was a solid director, but unfortunately, he missed the boat with "Backfire" because a backfire it was and went unreleased for two years. By the time it was released, Edmond O'Brien had enjoyed some big success - but in this, he doesn't have much of a role.

Actually, the beginning of the movie is the best part. O'Brien is Steve Connelly, just back from the war and hoping to buy a ranch with his wartime body, Al Corey (Gordon MacRae). Al was badly injured and has been in the hospital a while. Steve takes off and says he will contact him. But eight weeks go by, and no communication.

One night, while Al is asleep in the hospital and they have given him something to help him sleep, a woman rushes into his room and wakes him up. She tells him that Steve has been injured, he's in terrible pain, and he wants to die. She doesn't know what to do.

Groggily, Al tells her that he is due to be released soon, and Steve should hold on. He points to a pad where she can write down the address. In the morning the paper is blank, and Al's nurse (Virginia Mayo), among others, is skeptical about his story.

Once released, Al sets off to find Steve. He walks into sticks of dynamite getting ready to explode. He learns that Steve became involved with gamblers, and is wanted for murder of a big shot who wanted what he believed was owed him.

The problem is that once they started in on the flashbacks, the film became confusing. Most of the time going back and forth like that in a film is easy to follow, but for some reason, this wasn't.

The film also stars Dane Clark as another war buddy and Viveca Lindfors who is involved with someone named Lou Walsh, a mystery figure responsible for a great deal of mayhem.

"Backfire" seems too long at 91 minutes because the pace was off. MacRae did an okay job but he needed a little more guidance; this would never be his milieu. Viveca Lindfors is stunning -- it's a shame her film career didn't carry her further, but she wasn't one to play Hollywood games. She was an award-winning stage actress and for some time did a one-woman show that toured around the country. Even into old age she did television and small roles in films.

A disappointment all around.

I'd like to nominate Backfire as having the most overbearing, obnoxious musical score in the history of motion pictures. Every scene features ominous music to the point of distraction (1947's Angel & the Badman stands on a plateau just below Backfire... but sounds like Wayne & Co. simply recycled a serial soundtrack to save money). Backfire's music undermines every scene, creating the nauseating feeling that every frame is bursting with suspense... essentially validating Ivan Triesault's (as the director Von Ellstein) complaint (paraphrased) in The Bad and the Beautiful (1952) that every scene cannot be climactic. This is a textbook example of how less is more in film noir.

Gordon Macrae has been in a veteran's hospital since the War, while doctors operate on his spine again and again. His only visitor is Edmond O'Brien; they talk about going into ranching, but even though Macrae seems up and fine now, the doctors tell O'Brien that ranching is out. O'Brien leaves; a mysterious woman visits Macrae after he gets a sleeping pill; and when he is finally released, he's picked up by police captain Ed Begley. O'Brien is suspected in the murder of a gambler.

It's got all the earmarks of a classic film noir: the camerawork, the film noir, the fever-dream sequences, the flashbacks and the femme fatale. Film editor Thomas Reilly makes some odd choices, but director Vincent Sherman has a sure hand and gives everyone a moment or two in the center of the screen. Maybe it's to throw suspicion on each of them -- except for Ida Moore, who offers an important clue -- but that's part of the mystery game.

As to the question I posed in the title of this review, yes you can. But it's hard and rarely done. Certainly Carl Guthrie's excellent noir photography makes extensive use of them.... and lampshades.

It isn't difficult to see why this film was held back from release for two years. On a strictly personal level, when I get to see a retorted film noir from Warner's with Edmond O'Brien, Dane Clark and Virginia Mayo, I'm in. But this wasted all of them along with a supporting cast including uncredited parts by some previously and later known stalwarts.

It isn't really much of a film noir, borrows heavily from others and is quite poorly helmed by Vincent Sherman who completely mis-handles the actors and is lensed in a very lackluster fashion.

If you are an O' Brien fan like me, he is a cameo on this pic and by the time it was released was a leading man. Dependable Dane Clark is used over the top of his skills and lovely Virginia Mayo is denied her chance to shine as the good girl. Gordon McRae isn't nearly as bad as some have said, but suffers from a directorial failure.

I do feel the need to comment on a previous review above regarding a subtextual homosexual relationship between McRae and O'Brien. They have a total of less than 4 minutes screen time together and the rest of the film can only lead me to think that the reviewer may have a penchant for finding skeletons not in this particular closet.

Vincent Sherman made some exceptional films "The Hard Way" comes to mind, but this is one of his least efforts.

No need to recap the plot. Those first few scenes in the hospital are charming, when not also spooky. The chemistry between Mayo and McRae is so infectious, I expected them to burst into song at any moment. But then there's that spectral visitation at the foot of McRae's bed. It's expertly staged, surpassing in impact anything else in the film.

However, both the screenplay and the direction go downhill following this promising start. It's a complicated narrative whose alternating threads between flashback and real time are clumsily woven. At the same time, focal shifts between McRae and O'Brien further dislocate the viewer, (and why is Dane Clark given top billing with such limited screen time ).

At the same time, director Sherman doesn't appear to have a feel for the material, filming in flat impersonal style despite noirish touches from cinematographer Guthrie. Good thing that fine actor Eddie O'Brien is on hand to carry the acting department. McRae is handsome and likable, but without the needed gravitas of crime drama, while the ravishing Lindfors's best scene is as the apparition.

I like reviewer Brocksilvey's comments on the male-bonding aspects that I overlooked. In my experience, it's a very real part of military life and need have nothing to do with same sex attraction. Rather it has to do, I think, with the sharing of grueling experiences and the bonds thereby established, ones which can go deeper than more conventional types. Happily, the movie suggests the very sort of bonding Brocksilvey expresses.

Anyway, in my view, the movie's a passable crime drama, but nothing more.

Veteran Gordon MacRae is recuperating from wartime injuries in a hospital. His buddy Edmond O'Brien has been visiting him regularly but suddenly the visits stop. On Christmas Eve, Viveca Lindfors shows up to tell MacRae that his friend is hurt. When he's released from the hospital a short time later MacRae tries to figure out what happened to O'Brien, with help from pretty nurse Virginia Mayo.

Solid film noir with a good cast and several twists & turns. Great role for MacRae, best known for musicals. His wife Sheila also appears in this. Edmond O'Brien, Viveca Lindfors, and Dane Clark are all good. Virginia Mayo is lovely but it's odd seeing her in black & white. She will always be a Technicolor goddess to me. She's enjoyable in this and has believable chemistry with Gordon MacRae. Ed Begley is terrific as the police captain who's also looking for O'Brien. He gets some great lines such as when he stops another cop from shooting at a fleeing suspect because "you might hit a taxpayer." It's something of a hidden gem among film noir movies. For some reason, it sat on the shelf for about a year and a half before it was released.

Backfire is directed by Vincent Sherman and collectively written by Ivan Goff, Ben Roberts and Larry Marcus. It stars Virginia Mayo, Gordon MacRae, Edmond O'Brien, Dane Clark, Ed Begley and Viveca Lindfors. Music is by Daniele Amfitheatrof and cinematography by Carl Guthrie.

While recuperating from wartime back injuries at a hospital, veteran Bob Corey (Macrae) is visited on Christmas Eve by a beautiful stranger with a message that his army friend Steve Connolly (O'Brien) is seriously injured and in trouble with the police. Upon release, and aided by his girlfriend nurse, Julie Benson (Mayo), Bob enters the labyrinthine underworld of post war Los Angeles in search of his friend.

The warning signs that this might not be a particularly sparky film noir are evident with the lie on the film's poster. Tantalisingly suggesting Mayo as a femme fatale type, the girl from "White Heat" is anything but since she's literally an angel of mercy. Pic is a trifle of nifty noir moments and awkwardly acted scenarios. That it's needlessly convoluted only makes the problems of the staid script come to light.

The problems faced by returning veterans was a recurring noir theme, and here, even though it's not pushed forward to the maximum, it at least gives the story some psychological heart. It has a good cast, good monochrome photography and is played out with some classic noir staples, but it's not all it can be, compounded by a weak finale that feels like a writers compromise. 6/10

I was quite impressed with the thoughtful, knowledgeable and humorous comments written by so many classic film experts and their keen insights of such a detailed and complicated plot

Since this wonderful noir has been dissected so thoroughly I only have one item to analyze and one other comment to make.

In the beginning of this film Edmund O'Brien jumped out of a window and ran away. The police shot one bullet at him before Ed Begley told the other officer not to take any more shots and risk hitting a taxpayer.

O'Brien was ONLY a person of interest at best and a suspect at worst, but there was NO evidence of any type that he had anything to do with a murder. Why did the police take a shot at him?

P.S. Virginia Mayo did get to star in many musicals, adventure and comedy films during her career, especially from the late 1940s on but probably her 2 best known films were ones in which she played bad girls, "The Best Years of Our Lives" and "White Heat."

I just watched Backfire (1950) this afternoon on TCM. It starts off a little slow but gradually picks up steam in the interest department. The cast is uniformly good with Dane Clark giving a standout performance. The numerous flashbacks are necessary but they make the viewer really pay attention to keep up with the plot. Gordon and Sheila MacRae we're married when Backfire was made. What's really interesting about this movie is watching for the many soon to be familiar faces who show up in small roles, either on screen or voice only. Helen Westcott would have the the female lead in The Gunfighter (1950) with Gregory Peck in the same year that Backfire was made. Others with small roles are: Monte Blue, Russ Conway, John Dehner, Vinton Hayworth, Douglas Kennedy, Charles Lane, and John Ridgely. Backfire is an OK way to spend 90 minutes.

In spite of liking every one of the actors in this movie (in other films), I have to declare that it is the worst noir I have ever seen (just edging out Lightning Strikes Twice ). The plot has deep holes, the acting seems terribly rushed (I mean you, Ed Begley), and the musical score is an awful muddle. What was the director thinking, having Viveca Lindfors sing instead of Gordon MacRae?

As mysteries and dramas go, Backfire held my attention and I was genuinely interested in the four (4) main characters, Actor Gordon MacRae plays an injured war veteran named Bob Corey, While recovering in the hospital from a broken spine he is nursed back to health by the gorgeous Virginia Mayo who plays his nurse and subsequent girlfriend named Nurse Julie Benson, Bob;s army buddy and best friend is a guy named Steve Connelly played by veteran actor Edmond O'Brien. While in the hospital Bob gets a visit from his buddy Steve who shares some information with Bob then suddenly Steve disappears. While still heavily sedated to relieve his pain, Bob gets another mysterious visitor who we subsequently find out is a woman named Lysa Radoff played by Swedish actress Viveca Lindfors.

As the mystery grows deeper and Bob exits the hospital with a good bill of health he is told by the local police to leave the mysterious disappearance of his buddy Steve to the police to solve. The two attractive female leads in Virginia Mayo and Viveca Lindfors and Gordon MacRae are all considered suspects in the disappearance of Steve Connelly who is wanted as a suspect in a recent murder invloved in gambling.

The film kept me intrigued until the so called mystery fell flat as an upside down cake and I must say overall the film was great but the ending was a bit disappointing for what appeared to be a good mystery film until the proverbial THE END was posted.

I give it a better than average 8 out of 10 IMDB rating

Amfitheatrof's score is so intense the actors yell over it to be heard. The music played on camera on the piano and by a band with a singer have extremely warped dissonance. The soundtrack imposes a not so subtle conflict expressive of what has gotten out of hand in a noir hijacked by a serial killer. This would not have been a movie to see on a first date. Otherwise this treasure comes from a year graced by perfect camerawork and production quality. This is what a movie should look like and Edmund O'Brien and Virginia Mayo would soon become immortalized in White Heat. The furnishings and fashions are unmistakably 1949.