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Most film buffs know Jules Dassin as the director of the classic 1955 heist film, Rififi, which inspired numerous imitations including the director's own 1964 Topkapi, a more comic variation on the same theme. But some movie critics and film scholars such as David Thomson believe that Dassin's best work was done between the years 1947-1950 when he directed a string of visually dynamic, hard-edged melodramas starting with Brute Force in 1947 and ending with Night and the City (1950), which was filmed in London following his exile from Hollywood after being blacklisted. The Naked City (1948), with its realistic documentary style, is probably the best known of the four films he made during this period (it received three Oscar nominations, winning the award for Best Cinematography and Best Film Editing) while Thieves' Highway (1949) is probably the least known of the quartet. That situation is about to change with the Criterion Company's new DVD release of Thieves' Highway which reveals the film to be a distinctive and socially conscious entry in the film noir genre.
Unlike other noir thrillers of its era, Thieves' Highway opens in the sun-baked landscapes of central California and not on some rain-slicked city street at night. Even the protagonist, Nick Garcos (Richard Conte), is atypical for the genre; he's not a two-bit hustler or a corrupt cop or some other urban character. He's a returning GI and the son of Greek immigrants - a genuine working class hero. Almost immediately, the joyful homecoming turns dark as Nick discovers his father, a trucker, has been permanently disabled by an accident - one which implicates a notorious San Francisco produce dealer named Mike Figlia (Lee J. Cobb). Nick sets out to avenge his father, teaming up with Ed (Millard Mitchell), an older trucker, on a run to San Francisco with an early harvest of Golden Delicious apples. Nick's plan - to sell the crop to Figlia at the highest price he can get before revealing his true identity - is sidetracked by various problems along the way including unreliable vehicles, dangerous curves in the road and a prostitute (Valentina Cortese) hired to distract Nick from his objective.
One aspect that gives Thieves' Highway an edge is Dassin's expose of the corruption of the wholesale produce market and the way the working class is exploited by the system. In this way, the film shares some of the same social concerns that inform the work of John Steinbeck such as In Dubious Battle and The Grapes of Wrath. Instead of migrant workers, it's honest, hard working truck drivers who are victimized in Thieves' Highway. If the film shares some similarities to another early noir set in the trucking industry - They Drive by Night (1940) - it's because both films were based on novels by A. I. Bezzerides. The author, who adapted Thieves' Highway to the screen, is often acknowledged as one of the best practitioners of the genre, with screenplays for Kiss Me Deadly (1955) and On Dangerous Ground (1952) to his credit. His knack for creating complex, morally ambiguous characters who are never what they seem to be on the surface is in full bloom here. This is particularly true of the way in which the two women in Nick's life are presented - Polly (Barbara Lawrence), his blonde, seemingly innocent fiancee, is eventually revealed as a grasping golddigger whose motives are far more duplicitous than Rica (Cortese), the hooker who first betrays and then falls in love with Nick.
Any discussion of Thieves' Highway would also have to mention the striking black and white cinematography of Norbert Brodine which captures the hazards of independent hauling in purely visual terms. One of the most unforgettable images in the film - as iconic and powerful as any key scene from On the Waterfront (1954), Citizen Kane (1941) or other recognized masterpiece - is the sequence where Ed loses control of his rig, sending his cargo cascading down an embankment. Thousands of apples tumble down the hillside while Ed perishes in his burning vehicle, all of it grimly observed by two fellow produce truckers who are powerless to stop the disaster at hand. In scenes like this, the film looks ahead to the psychologically tense and fatalistic thriller, The Wages of Fear (1953).
Last but not least, Valentina Cortese as the predatory Riva is riveting in one of her first American films. Not a conventional beauty queen by Hollywood standards or even a typically alluring femme fatale on the order of a Jane Greer or Rita Hayworth, she nonetheless conveys an earthy sensuality and unexpected playfulness that contrasts sharply with her hard knocks profession. Even when she's raking her nails across Nick's back or planning to double cross him, she conveys conflicting emotions and possible clues to her true nature. In one of the extra features on the disc - an interview with Dassin - we learn that Cortese was romantically involved with her director at the time. Some of her mannerisms and her delivery of dialogue with a distinct European flavor may even remind you of Melina Mercouri, the star of Dassin's Never on Sunday (1960), who later became Mrs. Dassin.
The Criterion DVD of Thieves' Highway is a class A production all the way from its spotless transfer to the generous extra features. Among these are the aforementioned Dassin interview (recently recorded), a trailer for The Long Haul of A.I. Bezzerides (a documentary still in production), the theatrical trailer and a well-informed audio commentary by Alain Silver that could serve as the perfect primer for a college course in film noir. Breaking down Dassin's style in visual terms and providing extensive cultural and literary references (at one point, he interprets the film as a contemporary Greek myth), Silver is much less concerned with trivia and behind the scenes information like so many audio commentaries. While this approach might be a tad too scholarly for some movie watchers, it will be much appreciated by those who feel Dassin's work in the 1947-1950 period has been seriously undervalued. Thieves' Highway is an essential purchase for any film noir lover and his other film noir, Night and the City, also available from Criterion, is also highly recommended.
For more information about Thieves' Highway, visit Criterion Collection. To order Thieves' Highway, go to
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by Jeff Stafford
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