Mercado de ladrones

This was a pretty good film noir - nothing spectacular - involving a crooked trucking boss, "Mike Figlia" effectively played by Lee J. Cobb who was good at playing nasty villains. In this story, a young trucker, "Nick Garcos" (Richard Conte) whose father was ruined by Cobb, goes after him to settle the score. Nick drives up north to San Francisco to seek him out but has some rough going himself, until the end.

This had interesting characters and a different type of female lead in European actress Valentina Cortese, who was good film noir material.

The story moves pretty fast with few, if any, lulls, yet seems longer than it's 93 minutes. I found this was one of those films I liked a lot better the first time than the second, lowering my rating. It's definitely still a film to check out if you're a film noir fan.

I've seen hundreds of noirs and this small character study is one of the very best. If Dassin's simple but heartfelt story of betrayal and redemption doesn't tug at you hard, you must be made of stone. The acting triumvirate of Conte, Cortez and Cobb has never been better. I get angry just thinking about Cobb's brilliantly callous performance as the deceptive chiseler who destroys lives to make an extra buck. Cortez is subtle sexuality incarnate but she displays real range and sensitivity as the one who first destroys Conte's life then ultimately redeems it. The always reliable Conte is absolutely at his best as the desperately driven truck driver who sets out to right a terrible wrong but soon learns that you can't beat the system. The last shot of the fruit rolling down the hill has to be one of the most evocative and heartbreaking in all of noir.

Tiny budgeted movies sometimes suffer in translating reality, but much of HIGHWAY appears to have been shot on location, particularly in the produce warehouses, shoddy back alleys and winding country roads, which adds a ton of authenticity. The story takes about 15 minutes to get going, but from there it delivers amazing power and emotion. For decades it was one of those buried low budget classics almost impossible to find, but thankfully a couple years ago it finally got the DVD release it deserved. Trust me on this one, noir fans... Thieves' Highway is a haunting trip down a rocky road you want to take.

Beginning with his compelling "Brute Force" ('47)followed by the richly atmospheric "Naked City" ('48), Jules Dassin became the hottest dealer in Hollywood of the Film-Noir genre. "Thieves Highway" adds ethnic tensions to the Dassin stew of lost souls always living at the edge of danger. Richard Conte was at his peak here as the tough trucker, quick to throw a punch when he's threatened and equally capable of rolling with them if necessary. In Robert Siodmak's "Cry of the City," he's held in a headlock by a butch Hope Emerson; in this one, a jack gives way and a truck fender lands on his neck....ouch!

Conte, like Burt Lancaster, came from a streetwise background that, second only to a boxing ring, fitted him neatly as a glove when it came to movies like "Thieves Highway." Conte was so good in this, he was selected to repeat the role on TV six years later under the title "Overnight Haul" on the old 20th Century-Fox Hour.

As for Dassin, he had yet a fourth fling at the genre the following year with the claustrophobic thriller, "Night and the City." A film worth commenting on later. As for "Thieves Highway," having seen it, you may want to follow it up with Clouzot"s "Wages of Fear," made three years later and the ultimate truckers' movie. As a boy I was privileged to have seen all four Dassin movies during their original releases. How thrilling to see "Thieves Highway" and "Night and the City" now out on DVD!

Jules Dassin's last American production would be this adaption of A.I. Bezzerides novel about the slimy dealings in the wholesale produce market. After Thieves Highway, Dassin would do Night And The City in London and then be subject to the blacklist. As it is Thieves Highway is a remarkable film with a couple of interesting subplots.

Returning home from the war Richard Conte finds his father Morris Carnovsky crippled, the result of a trucking accident and robbed of the money for recently delivered produce to Lee J. Cobb the man in charge of San Francisco's wholesale market. Conte decides to take some vengeance out and get the money his father was robbed of.

In order to do this Conte goes into partnership with Millard Mitchell an old time trucker who now has Carnovsky's truck which has seen better days. When Conte arrives with a delivery of needed apples for the market, Cobb pays him off all right, but gives him the same kind of treatment he gave dad. A little something extra with femme fatal Valentina Cortese.

The main plot involves Conte and Cobb, but woven into the story is that of Conte's engagement to Barbara Lawrence which takes a jolt when she meets Cortese. Also Jack Oakie and Joseph Pevney play a pair of scavenger drivers who follow Mitchell in his beat up truck waiting for something to befall him.

Trucking wholesale fruit and vegetables is shown to be a dog eat dog business and top dog is Lee J. Cobb. His part here is almost a dress rehearsal for the waterfront racketeer he played in On The Waterfront. In a cast of good performances Cobb is also top dog.

Thieves Highway is a wonderful film that dates not one bit because things you see here still go on.

Turkish born (to Greek and Armenian parents) writer A.L. Bezzerides often wrote about experiences, he actually once drove trucks for a company his father started. Here, his story takes on the struggles of those 'little' trucking men to survive against BIG odds. The big odds being self seeking corruption amongst the soul-less fruit market wheeler dealers.

This film is a wild ride in any mans language! and ace Director Jules Dassin, just months before being foolishly hunted out of Hollywood by the House of Un-American Activities, holds the pace with near relentless energy...endless set backs mount throughout. Dassin was a rare kind of American Director, perhaps because of his Russian parentage he possessed a uniquely European style. In fact, he must be the only American to direct a French crime classic ('Rififi' 55) and reel it in on par with, if not better than, the French themselves! Check out other dynamic mood pieces by Dassin: 'Night and the City' 51 ~ 'Naked City' 48 ~ 'Phaedra' 62 (with Theodorakis's magnificent score) In '57 he also had the rare award winner 'He who must Die', etc....

He could hardly have had a better Director of Photography for 'Highway', than veteran Norbert Bodine. Bodine brings his years of experience to grace this film with moody, spectacular visuals, in the style of 'Kiss of Death '47 ~ 'Of Mice and Men' 39 and the now rare 'Little Man What Now' 34.

Performances are uniformly good, Conte the everyman, Cobb the evil thief, Cortese's first American film, (years later she would appear as the Mother in 1973's 'Brother Sun Sister Moon") there's also good support from several solid old reliables. This was not the first time writer Brezzerides had hit the highways, in 1940 he wrote that other road classic 'They Drive by Night'. He shows diversity with 'Beneath the 12 mile Reef' in '53. Fox's talented man of music, Alfred Newman added his familiar style with an exiting music score.

Then along came Darrel F. Zanuck's interfering hand, apparently re-writing, and re-shooting the ending...adding a silly tacked-on, overly 'sunny' closing. Why interfere when something is working as well as this...? The DVD I bought is the Fox Studio Classics release, it's OK, but the copy I have, has some disappointing digital pixels in the image. I've heard the Criterion disc is superior (the Criterion cover is better also). Who knows, they may even come up with the original ending...? Excellent story and overall film, pity about the ending.