'Highway 301': There's a Killer on the Road

Wally Cassell, Steve Cochran, Richard Egan, Edward Norris,
Robert Webber, 'Highway 301' (1950). 

It’s a wonder that anyone gets through the first few minutes of "Highway 301," a noir based on the true-life crime wave perpetrated by an outfit called the Tri-State Gang. The film is a taut little thriller that starts off with wooden speeches by three, count ‘em, three state governors, the honorable gentlemen of  North Carolina, Virginia and Maryland, where the real Tri-State Gang did its dirty work. Their turgid preambles are the same: Crime doesn’t pay, kids. It’ll make you roll your eyes and, depending on where you are, either change the channel or head for the snack bar.

But don't be put off. You might assume that the rest of the movie is just as cringe-worthy as the opening sequence but you’d be dead wrong. The action whips up to a furious pace as we follow a gang of bank robbers led by George Legenza (Steve Cochran), who seldom hesitates to squeeze the trigger whenever someone gets in his way — and that “someone” can include any of the gang members’ women who are traveling with them. He’s got pure Freon coursing through his veins and a thousand-yard stare that could stop a freight train. This being noir, the film admirably avoids giving us a fancy psychological profile explaining how he ended up this way. Bad childhood? Obviously, but who cares? He’s a B-movie killing machine. Enough said.

The rest of the hoods are a good deal less trigger happy than their boss and are quite subservient to him — who wouldn’t be? The guy’s nuts. They include Herbie Brooks (Richard Egan), Bobby Mais (Wally Cassell), Bill Phillips (Robert Webber) and the driver (Edward Norris). 

Steve Cochran, Gaby André.

French-Canadian Lee Fontaine (Gaby Andre), newly wed to gang member Bill Phillips (Robert Webber), hangs out with the band of henchmen not realizing that she’s sitting on a powder keg. Bill tells her that he and his buddies deal in women’s apparel and furs. Legenza’s girlfriend Madeline Welton (Aline Towne) who offers a bit of sarcastic comic relief, scoffs at the naive Lee. “Furs that fell off the back of a truck,” she sneers. Tension mounts as Lee finally gets the full picture of what’s going on. She knows too much, which is a surefire way to end up in a landfill. 

Voiceover narration by head investigator Det. Sgt. Truscott (Edmon Ryan) sets up each sequence, giving the film a documentary feel which fits well in this true crime drama. The cops want desperately to stop the gang’s wave of murder and robbery which Truscott characterizes as terrorism.

Director Andrew L. Stone keeps the action flowing and the tension wound as tightly as a two dollar watch. He plays with the audience’s emotions and expectations the way a conductor directs a symphony. Particularly good are his action sequences that include car chases and shootouts. One standout sequence moves from the interior of an apartment building to a park and finally to city streets and ends with a stunning twist. He also ramps up the jitteriness in a chase scene involving elevators and staircases. The tension of watching the elevator floor indicator dial move as a killer approaches his victim is heart-stopping. The unintended corker is that the elevator operator witnesses a particularly vicious murder and seems barely moved by it — maybe that’s business as usual in the elevator game. 

The film boasts the use of real-life locations, but most of it was shot on the Warner Bros. lot in Burbank. The studio rushed it into production to capitalize on the success of “White Heat,” in which Cochran co-starred with James Cagney. Like his role in the Cagney film, Cochran again fits perfectly into the part of a deadly lothario who acts with chilling brutality. It’s understandable that audiences in 1950 would be shocked by the level of violence depicted here — which probably helps explain the outsized concession that allowed the three governors the chance to hijack the first few minutes of the film.

Even so, we’re apt to concede that, yes, crime doesn’t pay, as the three stuffed shirts tell us, but it can also be pretty entertaining, and that’s why it’s worth watching.