Highway West

Only Arthur Kennedy's performance as a bank robber married to an innocent woman - Brenda Marshall - justifies the watch of this crime drama, built and directed as if it was a western. Yes, a western, that's not because you have cars instead of horses and a gas station instead of a grocery store that this film can be considered only as a classic crime flick. Anyway I have seen many westerns starring Arthur Kennedy, most of the time as the main hero's sidekick, friend or rival. As the real lead, besides THE NAKED DAWN, where he also was an outlaw, I don't remember him exactly in such a scheme. So, this very movie is still entertaining and worth the view.

I dislike crime dramas that feel the need to interrupt the action every 2 minutes with some stupid "comic relief". I dislike it intensely. This movie went back and forth between gun battle and Looney tunes cartoon action for the last 15 minutes of the movie and in so doing, destroyed any suspense that they might have built up. Sad. It's just bad movie making.

Brenda Marshall, (Claire Foster) is a young gal who meets up with a guy named George Foster, (Arthur Kennedy) and they only know each other for a very short time and they get married. George is always bringing home lots of money and buying all sorts of things for Claire and wants her to quite her job and go West with him. George is really a bank robber who has stolen a great deal of money and shoots a bank teller during the robbery and there is a man hunt out for him on all police bulletins in California. It is at this point in the film where it gets very interesting and you wonder just how this story will turn out. A very young looking Arthur Kennedy gave an outstanding performance along with some great veteran actors. Enjoy.

Poor so called remake of heat lightning. They should have picked someone else to play Myra the sister. Her accent is too heavy and you can't say that it's a boarding school accent.