A 1985 American Made-for-TV Movie psychological thriller directed by Douglas Hickox.
Ohio homicide detective Joe Steiner (Richard Widmark) is assigned the case of Lucy Vincent and her three children, brutally murdered on the night of the youngest’s birthday. Her husband Ed is missing and therefore the prime suspect.
At around the same time in California, a mystery man named Allen Devlin borrows a rental car from a traveling salesman, picks up a hitchhiker and then gets into a fiery accident. One of the men dies in the car and is burned beyond recognition; the other is thrown clear and badly injured, his face ruined by the accident, and stricken with amnesia. In the hospital, the survivor (Keith Carradine) undergoes reconstructive surgery and takes the name Allen Devlin. His nurse Chris (Kathleen Quinlan), who’s having an affair with police chief Michael Patterson (Michael Beck) after her divorce, falls in love with him as he’s rehabilitating himself and starting a new life while searching for clues as to who Allen was before the accident. They marry, Allen adopts her kids and they have another.
Six years later, Steiner, now retired, sends out a request for information on the Vincent homicides. In return, he receives anonymously a newspaper article on Allen Devlin. Steiner heads to California to find out if Allen is, in fact, the missing Ed Vincent.
The movie also stars Paul Drake (Sudden Impact), Gerald Hiken, Dameon Clarke, Martina Deignan, Gabrielle Rose, Jerry Wasserman, Kenneth Kimmins, Jason Michas, and Don Hood.
It aired on July 28, 1985 on HBO.
Tropes for the film:
- Bribe Backfire: Inverted when Theo Grant, the man who lent Allen the car, tries to solicit money from Allen in exchange for "remembering" that Allen really is who he says he is. Allen is having none of it, and walks out on Grant, saying "You're wasting my time!"
- Corpse Temperature Tampering: The crime scene of a quadruple murder is manipulated by the air conditioner being set at the lowest temperature.
- Dude, Not Funny!: One of the other cops at the police gymnasium jokes that Steiner should send Ed Vincent over to his own house because his wife and kids are driving him crazy. Steiner blows up at him.
- Identity Amnesia: Allen Devlin is in an accident that leaves one of the men in the car an amnesiac and the other one dead. As only one of the men's identities is known, the survivor takes on that one, and becomes a sweet guy who marries his nurse, adopts her kids, and has a baby with her.
- One-Word Title: Blackout.
- Red Herring: After Steiner finds a wall in Mike's house covered with pictures of Chris, revealing his obsession with her, he deduces that Mike sent him the newspaper article about Allen in an attempt to break up Chris's marriage so Mike can have another chance with her. Steiner goes on to accuse Mike of making the threatening phone calls and planting the leather mask in the Devlins' home; the film also also shows us a dramatic confrontation between Chris and Mike where she tells him she doesn't love him and never wants to see him again, and Mike hanging around the Devlins' home on the night of Paul's birthday. It's all misdirection to give us another suspect and let us hope that maybe Allen isn't Ed Vincent, and isn't the mask-wearing perpetrator of the recent assaults.
