Backlash (1947 film)

Los Angeles police detective Jerry McMullen (Larry Blake) stops a car driven by lawyer John Morland (John Eldredge) to tell him of client Red Bailey's (Douglas Fowley) jail escape. Shortly thereafter, an armed Bailey flags down Morland's car, which police find wrecked, its driver's face beyond recognition.

McMullen breaks the news to the lawyer's wife, Catherine (Jean Rogers), who identifies a ring on the body as her husband's. She soon becomes a suspect. Morland's law partner O'Neil (Robert Shayne) believes that Catherine and district attorney Conroy (Richard Travis) have been having a secret affair, while his doctor says Morland once swallowed poison that his wife tried to give him.

Conroy is found at the Morlands' weekend getaway cabin, which is maintained by a caretaker named Willis (Leonard Strong). The evidence of an affair grows until Catherine is arrested and Conroy resigns as DA.

Bailey, meantime, resurfaces with Marian Gordon (Louise Currie), a girlfriend. McMullen has a phone tapped and follows them. He learns that Bailey was hidden by Morland at the cabin, but then they had a fight and Bailey knocked him cold.

Catherine is released. She finds O'Neil dead at the lodge. Her husband, Morland, is alive. He has been behind this all along, going so far as to fake being poisoned to frame his wife. The body in the car is the caretaker's. It is a diabolical plan, but McMullen's on the case.

• Jean Rogers as Catherine Morland
• Richard Travis as Richard Conroy
• Larry Blake as Det. Lt. Jerry McMullen
• John Eldredge as John Morland
• Leonard Strong as the hobo
• Robert Shayne as James O'Neil
• Louise Currie as Marian Gordon
• Douglas Fowley as Red Bailey
• Sara Berner as Dorothy, the maid
• Richard Benedict as Det. Sgt. Tom Carey
• Wynne Larke as Patricia McMullen
• Susan Klimist as McMullen girl

Uncredited

• Billy Gray as Denny