Awesome Movie

The movie turns out to be a little better than the average. Starting from a romantic formula often seen in the cinema, it ends in the most predictable (and somewhat bland) way.

I think this is a new genre that they're all sort of working their way through it and haven't got all the kinks worked out yet but it's a genre that works for me.

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

... and he didn't even need much dialogue! This film is about the tri-state gang that robbed banks in North Carolina, Virginia, and Maryland. The title comes from the actual Highway 301, which was a byway for the gang which actually operated in the 1930's not the 40's when this film was made.The beginning is basically like a "Crime Does Not Pay" short from MGM, in which leading officials of the three states involved talk about the gang. The voice over continues through parts of the film.Cochran plays the head of the gang, George Legenza, and seems to enjoy just BEING a criminal as much as or more than the money it brings him. He shoots his common law wife dead after she gets boozed up and starts mouthing off. He does so without breaking a sweat, without a change of expression, and just walks away, not even interested in the elevator operator who sees the whole thing, just assuming that given what he has just seen he will keep his trap shut. He does.One gang member, Bill Philips, brings a wife back home from Canada (Gaby Andre as Lee) after he has had a short vacation, and she is basically innocent of the entire enterprise. She thought her husband and his associates were salesmen, but soon learns the truth but is basically trapped into going along with them. Bill promises nothing will happen to her while he is around, but then he is NOT around after a robbery goes wrong and he is killed.Lee tries to make her escape but Legenza tracks her down on the dark streets and shoots her in a prolonged and tension filled scene. She lives, though, and now Legenza has to come up with a way to finish the job in a hospital filled with policemen guarding her. How will this all work out? Watch and find out.I remember this film when I was in fifth grade, home sick from school, and didn't even know its name until it showed up on Turner Classic Movies decades later. I did remember Lee walking down the dark streets after she learns her husband is dead with the voice over saying "Bill said you were safe while he was around, but now he is not around anymore. What will happen to you now?". I always thought this was hitting the poor girl over the head for basically being a victim of circumstance.Legenza may have been the leader, but some of the other gang members, given their actual names here, did things that were pretty brazen too. For example, Wally Castle is sixth billed here as Robert Mais. Mais actually was in jail in Richmond, sentenced to death, and in spite of the fact he was a known long time habitual criminal with habitual criminals as friends, was allowed to receive those criminal friends as visitors! One of them slipped him a pistol, and he and Legenza escaped after a shootout that left one guard dead. Later a deputy committed suicide over his feelings of guilt in allowing the convicted murderers to escape. You won't see any of THAT in THIS film, because it is the production code era and makes law enforcement look a wee bit incompetent.Still it is a tense and action packed B noir. Recommended.

I will always have fond memories of Steve Cochran's portrayal of the scheming but doomed "Big Ed" in Raoul Walsh's classic "White Heat".Cochran gets to play the brutal lead gangster in "Highway 301". I wonder how much Cochran absorbed watching Cagney play the criminally insane "Cody Jarrett". Cochrane has a brutally handsome sinister face, but not much else. To be fair to Cochran, the script is hardly of the caliber of "White Heat". Steve is one mean son of a gun here -- he seems to get a real kick out of murdering women and bank guards. But whereas Cagney's performance in "White Heat" is a fleshed-out fully alive personality, Cochran's Legenza is a cardboard villain whose sadism is never explained.There are some good moments. Director Stone crafts a scene that is worthy of Hitchcock (and no doubt inspired by the Master) when Gaby Andre's character uses a piece of paper and a hairpin to unwedge a key, drop it onto the paper and slide it over to her side of the door. It doesn't sound like much on paper -- but the editing is well done and the scene becomes that overused term "Hitchcockian".Cochran's death is fairly hideous, a brutal affair involving a freight train, but the scene only reminds me of how great Cagney was on "top of the world'.If you can get past the slow opening with three fine governors from the states bordering "Highway 301" (this film is supposedly based on a true story) pontificating about what a wonderful film you are about to see, you are in for a rough brutal ride.Actually, thinking of Cochran, he was fairly effective as "Big Ed" in "White Heat". Even though we have seen his character in a love affair with Cody's wife Verna, there is still a curious admiration for this young gangster when he declares to Verna that he must take a stand against Cody Jarrett. As I said, had the script been better, Cochran could have done something more interesting on "Highway 301".

The criminal exploits of a small group of gangsters working in the Maryland/Virginia/North Carolina area. The docudrama subgenre of noir tends to produce few masterpieces and a lot of mediocrities. This one is closer to mediocrity, but has a few worthwhile assets. The intro, with "crime does not pay" lectures by the governors of the three states, sets the self-righteous, judgemental tone for the film's narration and messages. The story follows a standard formula, with early successes by the gang followed by the net of the law gradually closing around them and forcing their hand. The characterizations are fun but one-note. Steve Cochran in the lead has an edgy brutality but not much else. However, the action sequences are well done, and there is one nail-biting, suspenseful scene as one of the gangster's gals tries to escape. The photography is quite nice as well, at least during the gloomy night scenes.

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.