FBI operazione Las Vegas

Richard Conte, newly released from the armed forces, is in Las Vegas to meet a friend. First, he has an encounter with a B-girl. The next morning, as he tries to hitch a ride seven miles outside the city, he's picked up by the police under the command of Reed Hadley. The girl has been strangled, and Conte's dog tags were found beneath her. He gets the drop on the cops and high tails it out of town, only to hook up with magazine photographer Joan Bennett and her model, Wanda Hendrix.

There are some big holes in the plot, and some wild coincidences to make everything come out in Hollywood fashion. On the other hand, the actors are solid, Harry Harvey has a small, semi-comical role that advances the plot, and the denouement in a house in the Salton Sea makes a good setting for this early Desert Noir.

Part of the problems in the script can be ascribed to this being the first credited writing and producing job for Roger Corman. He had done some uncredited script work on THE GUNFIGHTER, but now, he had Allied Artists doing the distribution, William Broidy producing and Nathan Juran directing. All were exponents of the we-want-It-Tuesday school of non-excellence.

I guess it was good enough to turn a profit.

Although Miss Bennett is wasted in her role, the other named actors are good, and there are lots of other old-time performers to space things up.

This is a very unusual and low-budget B/W adventure from producer Roger Corman, directed by skillful Nathan Juran; one whose creators do a neat variation on the old tale of people kidnapped by a fugitive heading to somewhere and needing their vehicle or themselves as hostages. I find the storyline is straightforward and classic noir. Scene:  a casino in Las Vegas, a marine just back from service Marine (Richard Conte), buys a drink for platinum blonde (Mary Beth Hughes), and somehow insults her; so they have a public quarrel but then reconcile the problem.  The following  day, he is taken in by the sheriff an named the prime suspect in the girl's demise; she has been strangled. Using his military skills, he overpowers the officers holding him and sets out on the "lam". Troopers are checking the highways for him, hence the title, and also the state border; So he helps and hitches a ride with with a two women who have had car trouble. One is wealthy fashion photographer from New York, Joan Bennett; her young assistant, Wanda Hendrix, is the other. After a while the two try to rid themselves of him, but he stays with them--finally having to use force to have his way. He heads for the town where he grew up, for a climax, finding it under the waters of the Salton Sea. The film ends happily for Conte, but not before Bennett's dog has been killed, and he has been doubted severely and tested to the limit.  The film is inexpensive-looking and has indifferent dialogue by  but the story line is good, clean and memorable. Roger Corman devised the original story; four others had hands in the screenplay. There is original music by Edward Kay and some decent but hardly outstanding technical work. In the cast along with the principals are stalwart Reed Hadley, Frank Jenks, Iris Adrian, Harry Harvey,Tom Hubbard (one of the writers) and others all showing to advantage. I first saw this film nearly fifty years ago; and it is still memorable and satisfying; with more money and better dialogue, I believe these actors and the director could have made a fine narrative even better.

Highway Dragnet (1954)

Wow is this an up and down production. Most of it is rather good, with a handful of supporting actors around the dependable leading role played by Richard Conte. And the plot is solid if a little familiar. Conte, a returned G.I. from Korea, is falsely accused of killing a girl in Las Vegas. And to save himself he has to resort to extreme measures, like escaping from the local cops and more or less kidnapping a couple of attractive women along the way.

One of the highlights is the range of location shooting. Foremost, briefly, is Las Vegas, circa 1954. It will blow your mind. It's worth watching the first fifteen minutes alone. Then there are lots of desert scenes leading to a grand finale at the Salton Sea, which was famously flooded. This is amazing stuff, buildings have submerged, and a wide open landscape with hardly a car or house.

And the interaction between Conte and the two women is good if somewhat predictable (one of them falls in love with him, the other wants to kill him). There is even the beginning of a photo shoot at a country motel, with a couple of Graflex cameras shown nicely. It all has a curious low budget tension.

But the tension is often resolved or delayed by a sudden bit of luck. Just when Conte is going to get caught, the phone rings, or that kind of thing. And then the ending, which I can't give away, but ugh. It had huge potential, and was going great overall, until this preposterous scene where a confession is shouted over the waves.

So, take the lumps with the cream here. It's a short, fast, enjoyable movie overall.

In a Las Vegas casino, just-demobbed Marine (Richard Conte), buying a drink for a case-hardened platinum blonde (Mary Beth Hughes), inadvertently insults her; they have a public spat but kiss and make up, also publicly. Next day he's picked up by the sheriff as the prime suspect in her death by strangulation. He overpowers his captors and sets out on the lam.

Since an all-points bulletin has troopers checking the highways and the state border, he takes up with a couple of women with car trouble. There's a high-profile fashion photographer from New york (the redoubtable Joan Bennett, who helped shape the noir cycle in two early Fritz Lang films); with her is her callow young assistant (Wanda Hendrix). Despite their attempts to ditch him, he sticks with them, ultimately by force, on his journey to the California desert, where he grew up.

Highway Dragnet's title pretty much sums it up: It's a road-chase movie in the fast, flat 50s style, but with a good pulse and a perverse twist or two (alert viewers will pick up on a giveaway clue right after the dog becomes road kill). It also features the other kind of trouper in the person of Iris Adrian, doing what she did better than anybody else: the hash-slinger with a mouth on her.

But the pedestrian, late-noir style undercuts what might have been the film's final showpiece: a final reckoning in Conte's old homestead, under knee-deep water from the floods of the Salton Sea. This strange metaphorical setting gets taken for granted; this was a time when the evocative imagery of earlier film noir had ceded primacy to the literalness of plot.

Highway Dragnet is directed by Nathan Juran and written by Herb Meadow, U.S.Anderson, Roger Corman and Jerome Odlum. It stars Richard Conte, Joan Bennett, Wanda Hendrix and Reed Hadley. Music is by Edward J. Kay and cinematography by John J. Martin.

All I did was buy her a drink. One drink, and for 65 cents I bought a martini mixed with dynamite!

Though indexed in some sources as film noir, this barely resonates as such. It is basically a man on the lam picture, where Conte is wrongly accused of murder and has to go on the run to escape police arrest. He hitches with two gals, who start to become wary of their newly acquired companion. So, we have cops trying to capture their target, with near misses and with Reed "The Voice" Hadley heading up the dragnet operation, whilst there's the mystery element of who is the killer hanging in the air. Cast are fine and the production is standard fare, the finale at least serves up an atmospheric locale, and there's some decent snatches of dialogue. But really it's average at best and not one to seek out as a matter of urgency. 5/10