Highway Dragnet

Richard Conte, newly released from the armed forces, is in Las Vegas to meet a friend. First, he has an encounter with a B-girl. The next morning, as he tries to hitch a ride seven miles outside the city, he's picked up by the police under the command of Reed Hadley. The girl has been strangled, and Conte's dog tags were found beneath her. He gets the drop on the cops and high tails it out of town, only to hook up with magazine photographer Joan Bennett and her model, Wanda Hendrix. There are some big holes in the plot, and some wild coincidences to make everything come out in Hollywood fashion. On the other hand, the actors are solid, Harry Harvey has a small, semi-comical role that advances the plot, and the denouement in a house in the Salton Sea makes a good setting for this early Desert Noir. Part of the problems in the script can be ascribed to this being the first credited writing and producing job for Roger Corman. He had done some uncredited script work on THE GUNFIGHTER, but now, he had Allied Artists doing the distribution, William Broidy producing and Nathan Juran directing. All were exponents of the we-want-It-Tuesday school of non-excellence. I guess it was good enough to turn a profit. Although Miss Bennett is wasted in her role, the other named actors are good, and there are lots of other old-time performers to space things up.

I enjoyed this piece of what my current neighbors would call basura. I mean, it's done by the numbers. It's utterly stupid but exquisitely so. Richard Conte is Jim Henry, just released from the USMC, decorated several times, so we know he's a good guy. He stops for a drink in a Las Vegas bar while hitch-hiking to meet a friend in California. He politely offers to buy a drunk for a frowzy blond sitting on the next stool. She initiates a fracas. The next morning she's found strangled with a strap. The police pin it on Conte and the papers dub him "The Strap Killer." Later, Conte muses, "Sure, I bought her a martini. Sixty-five cents worth of dynamite." (That's the closest we get to poetry.) But Conte escapes, and is reluctantly given a ride through the desert by two women, the professional photographer Joan Bennett and her model, young Wanda Hendrix. The women soon find out who Conte is supposed to be. The viewer with insight or experience will figure out the real murderer at about the half-way point. The police spread a dragnet across points on the highway but Conte eludes them one way or another. You should see him smash through wooden barriers and demolish a couple of parked motorcycles. This is one tough swinging Jim. Acting. Nobody wins the silver star here. Conte snaps out his lines in a brusque and commanding tone. His style, which hardly ever varied, doesn't clash with the character though. Joan Bennett, who was fine elsewhere, is here given a role that turns her into an irritating nuisance. Her New York accent sounds thoroughly specious and swank, with Albian overtones. "After" becomes "Ah-fter." Wanda Hendrix can't act. The story is a kind of mechanical armature around which these three characters (four, if you count the sonorous Reed Hadley, the earnest cop) are molded. It's as if a couple of experienced writers of B features sat down and said, "Let's have the hero trying to escape from the police on a desert highway. How many different narrow escapes can we think of?" They did a good job. The close calls are uncountable. Somebody may look at Conte suspiciously and say, "Hey, didn't I just see your picture in the --", and the phone rings. Or the director cross cuts between police cars with their sirens ululating and Conte frantically trying to get gas at a station in the middle of nowhere. Only the owner is a lazy Mexican who has an old gas pump that is hand operated, and he ever-so-slowly pushes the handle back and forth while chatting amiably about how he and the ancient gas pump are "friends." It's all absurd and fun. Best thing about the movie is the location shooting, which nicely evokes the Mojave desert and, later, the climax at the Salton Sea. Maybe others might not like it as much as I do. It redintegrates memories of being a teen and being cooped up on a Coast Guard cutter that circled for weeks in mid-Pacific. Once in a while, an old movie would be shown at night, and this was one of them. We wept with joy. And Wanda Hendrix, actress or not, looked pretty good.

The budget on this noir film is as thin as dental floss and the story was rushed into a limited time frame. But Highway Dragnet does have its moments as Richard Conte newly discharged Korean War veteran has himself in a beautiful jackpot over the beautiful Mary Beth Hughes. Not the quick moments with her. But the fact Conte is accused of killing her after having a quick fling. In fact Mary Beth's small role at the beginning of Highway Dragnet is the best thing in the movie. Conte's arrested by Las Vegas cop Reed Hadley but he escapes from him and now there's a big manhunt on for him. Conte happens to hook up with magazine photographer Joan Bennett and model Wanda Hendrix. That turns out to be a dubious occurrence. The plot is a thin one and about halfway through you know exactly what the real story is. Still there's a modicum of suspense. And any film with Mary Beth Hughes and Iris Adrian playing a truck-stop hash slinger is worth watching.

Highway Dragnet is directed by Nathan Juran and written by Herb Meadow, U.S.Anderson, Roger Corman and Jerome Odlum. It stars Richard Conte, Joan Bennett, Wanda Hendrix and Reed Hadley. Music is by Edward J. Kay and cinematography by John J. Martin. All I did was buy her a drink. One drink, and for 65 cents I bought a martini mixed with dynamite! Though indexed in some sources as film noir, this barely resonates as such. It is basically a man on the lam picture, where Conte is wrongly accused of murder and has to go on the run to escape police arrest. He hitches with two gals, who start to become wary of their newly acquired companion. So, we have cops trying to capture their target, with near misses and with Reed "The Voice" Hadley heading up the dragnet operation, whilst there's the mystery element of who is the killer hanging in the air. Cast are fine and the production is standard fare, the finale at least serves up an atmospheric locale, and there's some decent snatches of dialogue. But really it's average at best and not one to seek out as a matter of urgency. 5/10

source: Highway Dragnet

An obviously drunken floozy (Mary Beth Hughes) is p.o.'d when drifter Richard Conte sits down next to her and responds to her model picture on the wall with a "used to be beautiful" response, tearing up on him like Muhammed Ali on Joe Frazier. He silences her with a kiss, and the next thing you know, he's being booked for her murder! Escaping from the police, he hooks up a ride with matronly Joan Bennett and her assistant Wanda Hendrix after helping them with their car, and before you know it, they are all avoiding the police, as it turns out Bennett knew the victim too, obviously not with much affection.... This is an enjoyable film noir with some implausibilities, but that does not stop it from being fun. You can't forget Hughes in her brief bit at the beginning, obviously suffering from one too many (and that includes men), and sadly, she is gone far too fast. I would have liked some flashbacks of her earlier story, especially once it came known that she had encounters with the women Conte ends up with. He is always a great anti-hero in films like this, someone you like but still don't fully trust. Bennett is still gorgeous with that smooth martini voice and the memory of her in early film noir like "Woman in the Window" is not forgotten. Her seemingly secure lady here has more than meets the eye to her. It's obvious that the romance is meant between Conte and Hendrix, but there's fire in Joan that hasn't quite sizzled as the years have gone by. There's a fun cameo by "tough gal" Iris Adrian as a waitress who has had enough (tossing a menu at Conte's table as if she was a card dealer in Las Vegas) plus mostly gritty outdoor photography that keeps this a "day noir" as opposed to most of them which were "night noir". Passionate animal lovers beware, however, that there is a scene with a small dog that they may find disturbing. All in all, however, this isn't bad considering this was late in the film noir genre and that it was made by Allied Artists, the studio that took over Monogram just a few years before.

This film is a real treat to watch due to the many absurdities that abound from scene to scene. After a shouting match in a barroom with a buxom over-the-hill blonde ex-model, Richard Conte, finds himself hitch- hiking to the Salton Sea where his house is rapidly disappearing from the rising shoreline! He's picked up by the police, who claim he murdered aforementioned blonde bombshell. Before you can blink an eye Conte's outta there and shooting holes in a classic Kaiser patrol car. He escapes in an old Nash which he abandons upon seeing Joan Bennett(wearing a dress made out of a parachute) and Wanda Hendrix trying to fix a broken-down sedan. He fixes things up while Joan's pooch becomes roadkill. Any 10 year-old has figured out the films outcome at this point. Conte becomes "Mr. Leash", the crazed killer, who gets a whole resort full of vacationers running for their lives. Conte, Joan and Wanda do everything but roast marshmellows over a desert campfire before Joan teaches them both how to do the "Twist" in an improbable puddle of quicksand near Conte's rapidly decaying, drowning dreamhome in the Salton Sea. This movie has a lot of unintentional laughs in it. A great bad movie.

After meeting a girl in a Las Vegas bar, a Korean veteran leaves town but later she is found dead and the police pick him up on suspicion of murder. He escapes from custody and hitches a ride with a photographer and her model. Low-budget but worthwhile crime film and the first for which Roger Corman had a credit, this time as co-writer. Richard Conte plays the man on the run with Joan Bennett and Wanda Hendrix co-starring as the photographer and model, although the two are only along for the ride.

Highway Dragnet seems like a B movie, and quite a drop in status for Joan Bennett. Bennett and Richard Conte are the star, along with Wanda Hendrix. Unjustly accused of the murder of a woman (Mary Beth Hughes) whom he met in a bar, former marine Jim Henry manages to overpower police and take off. After helping two women, Mrs. Cummings, a photographer, and her model, Susan Wilton (Bennett and Hendrix) with a car problem on the highway, Henry wangles a ride. He has an alibi, a old friend he was with in Vegas who is supposed to help Jim with a problem at his home the next day. And what a problem - it's underwater in the Salton Sea. With his photo on the front page, and cops coming from all directions, it's not long before Susan and Mrs. Cummings realize who he is - by then, it's too late. After pulling a gun, he pretends to be Cummings' assistant. And he pulls more neat tricks to escape the police. The trio end up taking a hazardous drive in the boiling hot desert. The movie is notable for showing the old Las Vegas and also Graflex cameras, which were fun to see. Susan's attraction to Jim after she realizes who he is I found rather odd. The really odd thing to me was the presence of Bennett, a favorite of director Fritz Lang, the star of many films and a contender for Scarlett O'Hara. Why is it that Harrison Ford at 79 is still playing leads and actresses like Bennett, Merle Oberon, and Lana Turner had to resort to low-budget films? When it comes to Hollywood, aging in women was fatal back then. It's better now, but I think there is a way to go.

'Highway Dragnet' is mediocre murder mystery where twist is uncovered before half the film is over. Rest of the movie we can enjoy by the numbers pursuit picked with cliché tension risers and occasional quirky characters for comic relief. Richard Conte stars as James Henry, a marine wrongfully accused for the murder of fashion model. He escapes from the police and while on the flee he helps out two women with car trouble - photographer Mrs. Cummings (probably Joan Bennet's worst performance of her career) and another fashion model Susan (Wanda Hendrix). It is really a second rate film-noir that some Roger Corman fans might look out for curiosity to see the film based on the screenplay that legendary 'King of the Bs' ever sold. He also served as associate producer just for an experience. There can be no better film school than is the experience working on a motion picture.