here on SSO on May 23, 2014.
I've watched it a few times since, and included it in a class on under-appreciated film noir of the '50s. It only gets better.Few things are more exhilarating than stumbling upon Noir treasure: HIGHWAY 301 (Andrew Stone 1950). I stumbled upon it about two-and-a-half years ago. It only gets better on the Big Screen.
You know it's going to be good when it opens with a stentorian voice-over narrator introducing the Governor of Virginia, who proceeds to endorse the film's message that crime does not pay. You know it's going to be better when the narrator then introduces the Governor of Maryland, who proceeds to endorse the film's message that crime does not pay. You know it's going to be the best when the narrator then introduces the Governor of North Carolina, who proceeds to endorse the film's message that crime does not pay.
It's the Tri-State gang on a rampage! (Based on a real case, so they say, but who cares.) George Legenza is the brains and the muscle of the gang. He's cold and calculating. His most exercised muscle is in his trigger finger. The body count keeps growing due to his penchant for killing, including women associated with the gang who cross him. The biggest heist in history – $2 million in an armored car – goes awry. Two million, all right...in cut money going to the U.S. Mint to be burned. The botched job leads to a break for the police, and the full force of the law is put into tracking them down. And they are tracked down and fall, one by one.
The Warners backlot has seldom looked so nightmarish. Legenza, portrayed by real-life Bad Boy Steve Cochran with intensity that is a cross between George Raft and Lawrence Tierney at their most malevolent, exudes a pervasive menace. Every encounter he has convinces you that someone – and probably not him – is about to die. Stone's direction is crisp, not flashy, but with a few nice jarring touches (thank you, Carl E. Guthrie) – alternating close-ups of Legenza and one of the women, with the faces filling the screen as he tries to convince her that she has nothing to worry about from him (don't believe it, sweetheart!), and filming Legenza through the cracked windshield of an overturned car as he tries to evade the police. Again, thank you, Carl E. Guthrie, for the menace of the night.
Stone also wrote the screenplay, which is very nicely hardboiled. What a directing career trajectory he had…fluff to STORMY WEATHER (1943) with the incomparable Lena Horne…to more fluff…to the ‘50s whereupon he discovered the dark underbelly we now lovingly call film noir. HIGHWAY 301, with the incomparable Steve Cochran, was the first of his ‘50s tough movies. Then to…well, I haven’t seen them, and I don’t think I want to.
This would make a swell double feature with GUN CRAZY, which was released shortly before, and is its inversion. But the intermission might be a problem. Annie Laurie Starr would sneer at the gals hanging with this gang, and Legenza would probably plug Bart Tare in the back (after reassuring him that they're in it together for keeps).
For those who really like their boys bad, this one would either cure you from the affliction or truly tickle your fancy (just before the slug hits you in the back or the back of the hand hits you in the jaw).
You cannot be kind to congenital criminals like these. They would show you no mercy. Let them feel the full impact of the law. The End.