Highway 13

Robert Lowery drives a truck for a living and is sort of engaged to Pamela Blake, a waitress at a truck stop diner run by her uncle Clem Bevan and aunt Mary Gordon. But too many of the company's trucks have been getting into accidents near the stop, destroying cargo and vehicle. Lowery is purportedly fired, and sent in to investigate.

For a Lippert movie directed by William Berke, there are some nice touches here, if you ignore all the toy cars that wind up falling off mountainsides. The acting is decent, and there are some pleasant moments in the script, like when Lowery and another driver are discussing how they came to drive trucks: one on the Burma Road, and the other in the Red Ball Express. Then they admire each other's coolness. Other than that, it's a standard sort of movie, competent handled on a short budget -- the IMDB trivia claims it was shot in 3.5 days. As a result, there aren't many subtleties, but there is professionalism.

There's a Lot Packed-In this 58min...3.5 Day Shoot...

Truck-Driver Robert Lowery is Under Investigation for Sabotaging Rigs Originating from the Fleet He's Working For.

Multiple-Suspects, Multiple Over-the-Cliff-Crashes, a Neat-Little Mystery to be Solved, with a Plenty of Action Along a Side-Dish Diner Romance.

Atypical, Rather Nasty Murders Take Place On and Off the Road, and the Guilty Party is Hard to Spot, but Maybe Not.

Everything Comes Crashing Down in Less than an Hour, and the Bang-for-the-Buck is a Good Bet on this Nifty, Pulpy, Entertainment that Contains some Edgy Characters.

The Old-Geezer who Runs the Diner/Truck-Stop Needles His Wife Once too Often and Gets a Pie-in-the-Face, that is Oddly Not Done for Laughs and is Quite Odd.

That's a Good Description of the "Lippert-Studios" Under-Card...Odd...

as it Rides the Road Right In-Line Behind other Popular "Top-Card" Movies from the Era with the Likes of George Raft, Humphrey Bogart, and Richard Conte.

This One Belies Its Own Low-Low-Budget and Delivers the Goods, and if You're Lucky Enough to Spot it on Your Travels.

Looking for Obscure, Little Movies with Big Rewards, it's...

Worth a Watch.

An amiable war vet trucker is suddenly surrounded by bad dialogue, weak acting, and a rash of fatal truck accidents with cheesy butane lighter explosions!

Highway 13 is one of the better efforts in the Forgotten Noir Vol. 4 series. Aptly directed by William Berke and led by a good cast featuring Robert Lowery who brings some credibility to the proceedings the film succeeds. The story is involving and moves fast. It entails a series of very suspicious accidents on, you guessed it, Highway 13. The action develops with the search for the source of the mayhem. One drawback to this fairly decent film is the very cheesy special effects, but what more can one expect of low budget B films. This was true of most early films but is more evident because of the sophisticated special effects we're used to today. A good movie and any film that has the great character actors Clem Bevans, Mary Gordon and Lyle Talbot can't be all bad!

Highway 13 casts Robert Lowery as a truck driver who gets himself into a jackpot as police authorities think he might be responsible for a string of accidents including two fatalities, one of those being the daughter of the president and founder of the company. When insurance investigator Dan Seymour clears him, Lowery becomes Seymour's operative to replace the one he lost as the other fatality was an undercover man, hired by Michael Whalen, widower of the daughter.

This is a pretty decent noir thriller from Lippert with an interesting array of suspects including Seymour himself who is always playing slimy characters. Maris Wrixon who is usually some kind of femme fatale herself in movies runs true to form here as the personnel manager for the trucking company. A short term involvement with her jeopardizes Lowery's relationship Pamela Blake who works at a truck stop garage run by Uncle Clem Bevans and Aunt Mary Gordon.

As you can see Highway 13 does have a nice assortment of character players which really lifts this Lippert film into decent entertainment. Remember the casting because the villain in the end will surprise you more or less.