Thieves' Highway (1949)

People are voting emotionally.

I don't have all the words right now but this film is a work of art.

Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.

There are moments in this movie where the great movie it could've been peek out... They're fleeting, here, but they're worth savoring, and they happen often enough to make it worth your while.

You really don't want to believe that dirt bags like Mike Figlia hold sway in real life, but this film from 1949 is a pretty good reminder that they're out there looking for a cheap angle any way they can get it. Lee J. Cobb does a try out here for his later role as a corrupt union boss in 1954's "On The Waterfront" and he's a real creep, attempting to steal Nick Garcos' (Richard Conte) load of apples right out from under him. Figlia throws everything at him including a hooker, a hatchet to his truck tires, and a pair of goons that roll him for his cash, while the determined Greek trucker keeps bouncing back each time.One of the surprises here was how quickly Nick's girl Polly (Barbara Lawrence) from back home throws him over when she finds out he got robbed and winds up stranded in San Francisco. So much for true love finding a way. But then you've got hooker Rica (Valentina Cortese) who makes the big play for Nick and has a hand in redeeming the both of them. I don't know that I'm buying the feel good ending with Nick and Rica going off to live happily ever after, but up till then the film's gritty realism and treatment of corruption in the produce market made for an effective noir tale.For another compelling story of wildcat truckers you might look up Humphrey Bogart and George Raft in the 1940 film "They Drive By Night", with a truly over the top performance by Ida Lupino in a courtroom scene following the death of her husband played by Alan Hale. Bogey and Raft portrayed a couple of brother truckers in that one, hauling lemons instead of apples, but otherwise working long and hard, determined to make that one big score.

THIEVES' HIGHWAY is one of the earliest road movies and, no two ways about it, one of the best. Jules Dassin surprises again with his own unique way of approaching a scene (the opening scene between Conte and his father, for example, or the scene where Conte lies pinned beneath his rig). Like WAGES OF FEAR, THIEVES' HIGHWAY never veers too far off course and we're along for the ride, riding shotgun- the best place to be in a road movie. Lee J. Cobb is on hand, warming up for his role in ON THE WATERFRONT, and my favorite scene in THIEVES' HIGHWAY is the barroom brawl, wherein Conte hammers Cobb senseless beneath a framed picture of Heavyweight Champion Bob Fitzsimmons. (Having earned a very meager living as a cab driver, I can relate to Conte's character's plight: when I collapsed in a service station parking lot one night- from a medical condition I didn't know I had, called "occult blood"- I had a guy try to pick my pocket quite literally while I was flat on my face. I stopped him by grabbing his wrist. He released my roll of bills- mostly ones- and kicked me in the head. There's ALWAYS somebody waiting to take advantage of a man when he's down...) (Prior to that, I'd written a three-day novel titled HACKS about cab-driving that could've served as the basis for a low budget independent feature itself.)

***Great summary by imogensara_smith ("A movie like this keeps the doctor away", imogensara_smith from New York City, 5 June 2006). Meanwhile, McGonigle ("Bravo", McGonigle from bean world, Massachusetts, 4 December 2006) has interesting thoughts about Nick's mental state at the film's end.***"Thieves Highway" (1949, Jules Dassin), Where film noir and Golden Delicious apples meet, is extremely gritty and suspenseful. Appearing a year before Dassin is blacklisted by the House un-American Activities Committee (HUAC), it depicts capitalism as an all-but-universal corrupter. With the lone exception of the protagonist, every character is seen destroying another for profit. The titanic struggle for working people to get ahead in a rigged game resonates today.War-veteran Nick Garcos (Richard Conte) comes home bearing presents for his family and somewhat tall girlfriend Polly (former model Barbara Lawrence, 5'8"). He learns that his formerly wildcatting father has been recently crippled by the perfidy of a Frisco-based produce market dealer, Mike Figlia (Lee J. Cobb). Headstrong and possessing a bad temper (when wronged), Nick partners up with occasionally unscrupulous, hard-boiled Ed (Millard Mitchell) to each drive a truck loaded with Golden Delicious apples from a particularly sun-kissed orchard to the Frisco market. Nick wants to do business with Figlia in order to make money and avenge his father at the same time. Unfortunately, Nick does not fully understand the depth to which Figlia employs murderous thugs to undermine business deals.There is a lot to enjoy. The performers are all excellent. Conte brings a physicality to Nick that is evident with his smoldering eyes, cat-like movement and athletic build. Lee J. Cobb, in a role that reminds many of his later appearance in "On the Waterfront (1954)", is perfect as the cigar-chomping, duplicitous produce dealer. There is always money to be made crossing unsuspecting saps and Lee J. Cobb seems to have known this from birth. Valentina Cortese is remarkably effective as the occasional Italian prostitute Rica, who is as street-wise as she is sensual. After being hired by Figlia to distract Nick from his load of apples, she double-crosses Figlia and becomes Nick's best ally. She helps Nick negotiate the tricky San Francisco underworld, a brutal environment that Nick's rarefied fiancé, Polly, could never acclimate to. The scenes between Nick and Rica in Rica's apartment are often beautifully realized. The moment where the pair play tic-tac-toe with their fingers on Nick's chest is really sexy.The screenplay (by A. I. Bezzerides who adapted his own novel) really breathes; i.e., events change at a believable pace, as seen by the length of screen time before Figlia begins appropriating Nick's apples. I love how vital the market scenes are, as Dassin's camera is normally stationary while the background is filled with people and objects in motion. Some reviewers believe that Dassin is showing his antipathy towards capitalism by making the audio and visuals from the early market scenes "noisy", as if to portray it as an assault on the senses. However, there is one particular image that everyone remembers from "Thieves." The much-discussed sight of apples tumbling down a steep hill after the truck that was carrying them has crashed is uniquely profound. Again, many will find an anti-capitalist message here. Clearly Dassin is commenting on the sheer destruction of countless lives in the pursuit of monetary gain.Speaking of double-crosses, executive producer Darryl Zanuck is known to have included (and personally directed) the final shot, without Dassin's knowledge. Zanuck also altered the roadhouse showdown between Nick and Figlia by including surprisingly uncorrupted police officers, one of whom is laughably from a different universe than every other character.) Also, Star Trek fans will want to notice Joseph Pevney as Pete. (Pevney later became one of Star Trek's principal directors.) "Thieves Highway" is a top-shelf noir, and an absolute must-see for Cinephiles. However, if you are driving an over-loaded big-rig to the revival theater showing this, it is recommended that you have slept within the last 36 hours and that your universal joint is not being held up by wire and spit.

Nick Garcos (Richard Conte) returns from a round-the-world engagement to a home that, at first glance, typifies the ideal American household. His father's working-class singing voice booms across the backyard; his mother fussily busies herself with the daily chores; his girlfriend Polly (Barbara Lawrence) bursts jubilantly into the room, embracing him in a passionate, sensuous kiss. But looks can be deceiving: a well-intended gift of Chinese slippers betrays a recent family tragedy; Polly's disappointed response to another gift hints at a fractured romance, a relationship borne not from love but the love of money. The family's facade of happiness is exposed as a sham, and it's the peeling back of this superficial skin with which Jules Dassin's 'Thieves' Highway (1949)' is concerned. A seemingly-innocuous industry, that of fresh fruit cartage and wholesale, is shown to wallow in depravity, thuggery and callous opportunism. In this way, the film might be considered a companion piece to the director's previous effort, 'The Naked City (1948),' which similarly exposed gruelling drama within the confines of the audiences' daily lives.Richard Conte was one of the most interesting leading men of his era. His big-shot crime boss in 'The Big Combo (1955)' might be the decade's most charismatic villain, but he could also play the resolute hero, as in Preminger's 'Whirlpool (1949).' To 'Thieves' Highway' he brings a cocky self-assurance, the sort of fearless conviction that's bound to blow up in one's face eventually. Lee J. Cobb's conniving fruit wholesaler, Mike Figlia, is a small-time crook, but one who invokes the viewer's contempt through his ruthlessly-capitalist exploitation of the humble working-class American. Only the females aren't as memorably drawn: Barbara Lawrence's Polly is rather abruptly discarded as a self-seeking gold-digger, as though only to allow for a romance with possible prostitute Rica (Valentina Cortesa), who grows a heart of gold. 'Thieves' Highway' no doubt inspired Henri-Georges Clouzot's nail-biting 'The Wages of Fear (1953),' another classic tale of trucking peril, but unfortunately it itself lacks the French director's gritty cynicism, or at least a degree of pessimism as absolute as Clouzot's.This slackening of tone is seen most tellingly in the film's dramatic climax, a confrontation between Garcos and Figlia. The sequence doesn't work because it's conflicted between two opposing moral viewpoints. In one sense, Dassin appears to advocate Garcos' vigilante action in subjecting Figlia to a physical beating, since he successfully reclaims his stolen payments and achieves some degree of mental closure regarding his father's crippling. However, at this moment, as Garcos collapses onto the bench in exhaustion, policemen enter the diner and arrest Figlia for his crimes – but not before one officer sternly wags his finger at Garcos for taking the law into his own hands. To have an excellent film intruded upon by such an awkward, juvenile moral lesson is bad enough, but the film could have gotten across the same message in a more powerful manner. As the police stormed into the diner, my blood had suddenly run cold with the chilling thought: what if Figlia is dead? Out of pure bloody-minded pride, a good man would have been condemned for life, the ultimate testament that vigilantism is not the answer.