Streaming Highway 301 Online

Highway 301 (1950)iMDB Rating: 7.0
Date Released : 1 December 1950
Genre : Crime, Drama, Film-Noir
Stars : Steve Cochran, Virginia Grey, Gaby André, Edmon Ryan
Movie Quality : HDrip
Format : MKV
Size : 870 MB

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Led by a psychotic killer, a vicious gang of armed robbers terrorizes Virginia, Maryland and North Carolina, robbing banks and payrolls and murdering anyone who might identify them

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Review :

Caper thriller starts out well, but quickly sinks into B-gangster formula

I had high hopes for HIGHWAY 301 (1950). It's a Warner Bros. crime picture produced a year after WB's classic, WHITE HEAT, with two of the same cast (Steve Cochran and Wally Cassell), and it's based on the true story of the Tri-State Gang. It starts out well with semi-documentary sequences, including speeches by three Southern governors (from Maryland, Virginia, and North Carolina) warning us that crime doesn't pay and hoping this film will reinforce that message. There are establishing shots of Winston-Salem, NC, before the film reverts to Southern California locations for the first caper in the film, a well-planned bank robbery by the five members of the gang. The next caper, still within the film's first half-hour, is the disastrous robbery of an armored truck, filmed on location in L.A. (but taking place in Virginia). Eventually the cops close in and the gang goes on the run, taking with them Lee Fontaine (Gaby Andre), the French-Canadian girlfriend of a now-dead gang member, and holding her captive after she's finally figured out that these guys aren't women's apparel salesmen after all. She comes off as astoundingly naive, so it's hard to feel sympathy for her.

After all the location footage in the first half-hour, the rest of the film is shot entirely on Warner Bros. soundstages and the studio's generic urban backlot. This part is supposed to take place in Richmond, Virginia, but there isn't a single element of southern flavor nor a southern accent to be heard anywhere. (Nor do we ever see Highway 301.) There are no more robberies as the film becomes a standard gangster picture as Fontaine tries to escape the gang at various points. In one scene she's stalked by Cochran at night through deserted streets, parks, and back alleys which create a nice noir-ish effect that would have meant something if the film had managed to generate any suspense. It all culminates in a hospital stand-off and a no-budget car chase staged entirely via rear screen projection. This was during a year when location-filmed car chases were attracting attention in films like Gordon Douglas's BETWEEN MIDNIGHT AND DAWN and Anthony Mann's SIDE STREET, so it's hard to excuse the shoddy work in this film.

Two members of the gang, played by Richard Egan and Edward Norris, disappear for long stretches of the film even though they're all supposed to be on the run. Robert Webber, in his film debut, plays the boyfriend of Fontaine and the one who told her they were a team of salesmen. (The oldest film of Webber's I'd seen previously was TWELVE ANGRY MEN, 1957.) As many of these movies as I've seen, and as many books about real-life crime gangs as I've read, I don't recall coming across any major instance where the gang lets a woman into their inner circle who doesn't already know—and accept—what they do. Fontaine's presence, as well as that of Cochran's ill-fated girlfriend seen earlier in the film (played by the pretty Aline Towne), violate a key precept of the genre and the tacit allowance of it by Cochran's hardened gang leader made it difficult for me to suspend my disbelief. Virginia Grey plays Cassell's girl, the only remotely believable female character in the film, although her addiction to soap operas heard on the portable radio she carries around seems like a screenwriter's construction designed to give her a "quirk." Her attempt to impersonate a reporter at the hospital is pretty funny, though.

Cochran (Big Ed in WHITE HEAT) snarled with the best of them and does it throughout this film in a portrayal he could have pulled off in his sleep. He's quite menacing to the women in the film, who spend a lot of time sneaking down stairways to avoid and escape him. (In real life it was quite the reverse, or so I've heard.) Cochran was an excellent actor, but he suffered from typecasting, especially in a film like this, where he's given no characterization at all. Wally Cassell (Cotton Valetti in WHITE HEAT and also seen in THE SANDS OF IWO JIMA) plays Cochran's closest sidekick and it's the biggest part I've seen him in. He's very good, but it's strictly a standard-issue role.

Edmon Ryan co-stars as Sergeant Truscott, a mild-mannered Washington DC police officer who leads the investigation and also narrates the film. One of his final lines to the audience is quite memorable: "You can't be kind to congenital criminals like these."