Thieves' Highway

9/26/2014

Everyone likes apples - Except doctors. Thieves' Highway is directed by Jules Dassin and adapted to screenplay by A. I. Bezzerides from his own novel Thieves' Market. It stars Richard Conte, Valentine Cortese, Lee J. Cobb, Barbara Lawrence, Jack Oakie and Millard Mitchell. Music is by Alfred Newman and cinematography by Norbert Brodine. A war-veteran returns to the family home to find his father has been left wheelchair bound by a amoral produce dealer in San Francisco. Swearing revenge he sets himself up as a truck driver and heads off to Frisco with a truck load of Golden Delicious apples... Revenge, hope and desperation drives Dassin's intelligently constructed noir forward. It's a film very much interested in its characterisations as it doles out a deconstruction of the Americ

1/7/2025

I think this might be the best effort I've seen from Richard Conte as his "Nick" character comes back from the war eager to pick up his life again with his father and girlfriend "Polly" (Barbara Lawrence). The problem is that in his absence, his dad has had an accident that's robbed him of the use of his legs and given he was a truck driver, his livelihood too. "Yanko" (Morris Carnovsky) explains that he was cheated by local nasty "Figlia" (Lee J. Cobb) and so his boy sees red and sets about seeking his revenge. He goes into business with another down-at-heel driver "Ed" (Millard Mitchell) delivering apples but that just attracts the attention of his nemesis and his thugs who set out to sabotage their operation. He's not a brute, is old "Figlia" - he tries a more subtle approach by using l