O Longo Trajeto

This is a rather wrenching melodrama for those who like such things. Although on the surface The Long Haul is a trucking film and a noir, some of the characters' interrelationships and motivations add enough heft to the tense script to make you lean forward out of your seat for more reasons than just action and suspense.

I admit to watching the film for Dors, not previously being much of a fan of Mature, but I thought his contribution to the film was every bit as solid as hers.

Dors is nowhere as hot here as she was in Tread Softly Stranger, released a year later, but she gives a solid performance.

Remarkably similar to Cy Endfield's 'Hell Drivers', which came out slightly earlier; but that was probably a coincidence.

This probably owes it's provenance more to Hollywood blue collar road movies of the forties like 'They Drive by Night' and 'Thieves Highway' - with a bit 'The Wages of Fear' thrown in - while the Brylcreemed, zoot-suited villain Joe Easy is presumably based on Johnny Friendly in 'On the Waterfront' and his sidekick played by Peter Reynolds on Rod Steiger's Charley.

I wasn't expecting much from "The Long Haul," but it's actually quite good. It stars Victor Mature, Diana Dors, Gene Anderson, Patrick Allen, and Peter Reynolds.

Mature is ex-GI Henry Miller, living in England with his British wife (Anderson). He wants to go back to America with her and their son, but she wants to wait a few months, to return to Liverpool and see her mother. Henry, she says, can get a job with her relative's trucking company.

It doesn't quite work out as hoped. The truck company is totally corrupt, and before Henry knows his, he's forced out of regular trucking and in order to make any money, doing illegal runs for the mob owner, Joe Easy (Allen).

Then Henry meets Joe's girlfriend, the gorgeous Lynn (Dors). She and Henry fall for one another. Henry is unhappy in his marriage, but he's not sure he can go through with leaving his wife and child.

This is a sad film about sad people: Henry, unhappily married, Lynn, in love with a married man and tied to a criminal, Henry's wife, who doesn't want to go to America, Joe, a frustrated mob boss.

A huge part of the film shows Henry's truck driving through the mountains on a narrow, rocky road and what follows - very dramatic and nerve-wracking.

I'm not a huge fan of Mature, but he does a very good job here. Dors, despite coming to fame due to her drop dead gorgeous looks, was a very good actress and is effective here.

Lots of truck driving scenes and cheap diners - they capture the lonely atmosphere very well.

There is a sort of inevitability about casting Victor Mature and Diana Dors. That is if you the reader have any passion for 1950's films as I do. They were larger than life then, and their physicality alone caught people's attention back then even if it does not now. Imagine the star of ' Demetrius and the Gladiators ' and the star of ' Passport to Shame ' meeting in a dream and insisting on their acting together and you have it. A dream for many came true to them as well as us, both with the male and female audience. Ken Hughes was a good director for them, and the screen is in stark and beautiful black and white showing off their mutual acting and physical abilities. Typecast as bad girl we all loved back then, but good at heart even when she kills in ' Yield to the Night ' (arguably her best performance) Dors shows yet again how well she could handle her sexual allure and her skills as a fine actor. Victor Mature in his rough, beat up good looks, and his equal power as a very strong actor make as I said a perfect match. And Hughes given a complex Film Noir plot does not let the audience down with trucks burning up the asphalt quite literally and corrupt men manipulating the weak and the good. No spoilers but Mature is a married man, but despite falling in love with Dors, duty to a mistaken marriage haunts him to the film's end. I enjoyed every minute of this very thrilling and sexy film (more so if the censor would have allowed) and it is well worth seeing once, and maybe more than once. Not a great film and a little bit derivative of others it somehow holds its own, and corruption in the long haul trucking business shows well the underside of British life in the mid-1950's.

The Long Haul is directed by Ken Hughes and Hughes adapts the screenplay from the Mervyn Mills novel. It stars Victor Mature, Diana Dors, Patrick Allen, Gene Anderson and Peter Reynolds. Music is by Trevor Duncan and cinematography by Basil Emmott.

Harry Miller (Mature) is an American serviceman who after the war has relocated to Northern England to live with his British wife and their son. He hankers to get back to America but his wife is not keen, so he takes up a truck driving job and quickly learns that corruption and under the table deals are the order of the day. Refusing to bend to that way on account of his moral fibre, this puts him on a collision course with violent racketeer boss Joe Easy (Allen), more so when he steps in to help Easy's girlfriend, Lyn (Dors), during an altercation and Lyn becomes quite smitten with Harry.

Gritty and grimy Brit noir that pulses with violence, simmering sexuality and big roaring lorries! By the time of film's release, the plot device of a returning soldier finding things less than worth fighting for had been done to death, but in the case of Hughes' movie it has a relocation slant that gives it a bit of zest. This gives the pic a rock solid foundation from which to tell its tale, and in the main it delivers all the requisite requirements for the film noir buff.

Narratively it revels in film noir tropes, not content with the confused ex-soldier angle, it throws in a classic femme fatale (Dors sexually charged) and a trick up its sleeve that puts some extra oomph into the culmination of story. The look is a suitably shadowy world of wet winding roads and smoky road side diners, while the dockside scenes are so excellently filmed you can practically smell the damp and salt wafting across the working class backdrop.

Some supporting performances are, shall we say too keen, and some of the dialogue leaves a lot to be desired, but this is well worth a spin for anyone interested in British noir. Mature and Dors, both under rated actors in their day, are great value as characters desperately trying to find some solid meaning in life, while Allen has a great time playing the cigar chomping - square jawed - bastardo Joe Easy. Check it out, a better than average Brit noirer, pushing boulders and trying to move emotional mountains, indeed! 7/10