Estrada 301

The heart sinks when Highway 301 opens as the governors of three states bore us blind with pompous crime-does-not-pay speeches, one after the other. (It was 1950, and before we had a good time we had to be morally reassured.) Luckily, things pick up quickly in this modest but very well done look at life on the lam. A gang of bank-and-payroll robbers is terrorizing North Carolina, Virginia and Maryland; its leader (Steve Cochran) is especially vicious, and seems to take particular delight in bumping off women who cross him. One of them (Virginia Grey) gets bumped off much too early, as her sassy mouth is one of the best things in the movie. Another is the French-Canadian girlfriend (Gaby Andre) of another gangster, who only slowly comes to realize that she's fallen in with a den a theives ("duh?"). The tensest sequence in the movie occurs when Cochran is stalking her, by night, in the streets of Richmond, Virginia. The concluding scene, in a hospital, is almost as good. Again, by no means a vital installment in the noir canon, but quite professional and engaging.

With Steve Cochran as the steely psychopath, his solidly loyal gang members (and Cochran loyal to them), and the carefree, hardboiled but feminine Virginia Grey, the film is well acted. The action on the streets and with large crowds is pleasingly complex and realistic. The finely staged light-and-shadow settings are consistently startling and eye-catching in a variety of indoor and outdoor settings. These elements, despite the governors unconvincingly reading their scripts and a narrative voice for documentary effect, could have made this film a solid 7 and perhaps an 8 out of 10. However, the predictable, tedious melodramatic "Perils of Pauline" escape attempts of the Lee Fontaine character are a ball-and-chain that (for this viewer) held this film back from being a runaway noir success.

A gang of well-dressed armed robbers, unimaginatively dubbed the Tri-State Outfit by police, go on a crime spree across three states. The opening bit with the real governors of Virginia, Maryland, and North Carolina giving speeches about law & order will have you rolling your eyes. But stay with this one because it does get better. Steve Cochran is great as the cold-blooded leader of the gang. Robert Webber, Wally Cassell, and Richard Egan are among the other familiar faces in the cast. Lovely actresses Virginia Grey, Gaby André, and Aline Towne pretty things up as molls. Grey's character is a radio junkie, which leads to some funny moments. I liked the location scenery and the cars, fashions, and architecture of the period. It's a well-paced B crime picture with lots of grit and some atmosphere. Cheesy at times and never anything deep but it is solid entertainment. Were it not for the corny "crime does not pay" messages, this one would probably be more well-known and liked.

A criminal gang gains a cross-state reputation for big-time robberies.

Looks like Warner Bros. was trying to repeat the success of White Heat (1949) from the year before. This movie's got plenty of action, plus snarling bad guy Cochran, and a capable cast even if stuck in one-dimensional roles. All in all, it's a decent slice of thick-ear, but a long way from a classic like Heat. Trouble here is that the staging goes from location style realism in the first half to studio bound noir in the second, a rather awkward adjustment. On one hand, I suspect the first half was to underline the prologue of the three state governors. On the other, noir is clearly artifice and calls attention to mood as well as story.

Then too, French import Andre's role grafts on like a studio effort at career promotion. She does okay, but the role is like an add-on. And dare I say it, but the climax is way overdrawn, as if they're intent on milking the situation dry. After all, impact doesn't have to depend on length. None of this is to deny the many moments of real suspense that dot the movie as a whole. I especially like the cat and mouse between cop Ryan and gang girl Grey. It's a peach of acting and scripting.

It's also probably worth noting that the epilogue is harshly law and order, at a time when Hollywood's social direction was largely reformist, e.g. Caged (1950), Riot in Cell Block 11 (1953). Anyway, if you don't mind your gunfire and melodramatics slathered on, this is a movie to catch.

After ten years directing musicals and comedies, Andrew Stone with 'Highway 301' turned to making the thrillers for which he remains most fondly remembered. The distinctive 'documentary' style of his later films like 'The Steel Trap' (1952) and 'The Last Voyage' (1960) - using natural sound and authentic locations - is hinted at in the opening robbery sequence, but much that follows resembles a conventional studio-shot gangster film.

In their enormous, immaculate suits Steve Cochran and the rest of his gang at all times look as if they're about to go to a wedding in those big black cars they're driving. Described by Bosley Crowther at the time as "a straight exercise in low sadism", its a far more brutal film than Stone's later thrillers, which tend to take a more benign view of humanity and have more upbeat endings.