Highway Dragnet (1954) User Reviews

Fast twisty sometimes nutty sometimes beautiful very low budget escapism

[secondtake · 6/10 · 25 April 2012]

Highway Dragnet (1954)

Wow is this an up and down production. Most of it is rather good, with a handful of supporting actors around the dependable leading role played by Richard Conte. And the plot is solid if a little familiar. Conte, a returned G.I. from Korea, is falsely accused of killing a girl in Las Vegas. And to save himself he has to resort to extreme measures, like escaping from the local cops and more or less kidnapping a couple of attractive women along the way.

One of the highlights is the range of location shooting. Foremost, briefly, is Las Vegas, circa 1954. It will blow your mind. It's worth watching the first fifteen minutes alone. Then there are lots of desert scenes leading to a grand finale at the Salton Sea, which was famously flooded. This is amazing stuff, buildings have submerged, and a wide open landscape with hardly a car or house.

And the interaction between Conte and the two women is good if somewhat predictable (one of them falls in love with him, the other wants to kill him). There is even the beginning of a photo shoot at a country motel, with a couple of Graflex cameras shown nicely. It all has a curious low budget tension.

But the tension is often resolved or delayed by a sudden bit of luck. Just when Conte is going to get caught, the phone rings, or that kind of thing. And then the ending, which I can't give away, but ugh. It had huge potential, and was going great overall, until this preposterous scene where a confession is shouted over the waves.

So, take the lumps with the cream here. It's a short, fast, enjoyable movie overall.

Despite some wasted opportunities, a better-than-most road chase noir

[bmacv · 7/10 · 26 May 2002]

In a Las Vegas casino, just-demobbed Marine (Richard Conte), buying a drink for a case-hardened platinum blonde (Mary Beth Hughes), inadvertently insults her; they have a public spat but kiss and make up, also publicly. Next day he's picked up by the sheriff as the prime suspect in her death by strangulation. He overpowers his captors and sets out on the lam.

Since an all-points bulletin has troopers checking the highways and the state border, he takes up with a couple of women with car trouble. There's a high-profile fashion photographer from New york (the redoubtable Joan Bennett, who helped shape the noir cycle in two early Fritz Lang films); with her is her callow young assistant (Wanda Hendrix). Despite their attempts to ditch him, he sticks with them, ultimately by force, on his journey to the California desert, where he grew up.

Highway Dragnet's title pretty much sums it up: It's a road-chase movie in the fast, flat 50s style, but with a good pulse and a perverse twist or two (alert viewers will pick up on a giveaway clue right after the dog becomes road kill). It also features the other kind of trouper in the person of Iris Adrian, doing what she did better than anybody else: the hash-slinger with a mouth on her.

But the pedestrian, late-noir style undercuts what might have been the film's final showpiece: a final reckoning in Conte's old homestead, under knee-deep water from the floods of the Salton Sea. This strange metaphorical setting gets taken for granted; this was a time when the evocative imagery of earlier film noir had ceded primacy to the literalness of plot.

A True Sleeper; A Low-Budget Noir Adventure Well-Acted and Well-Directed

[silverscreen888 · 7/10 · 6 July 2005]

This is a very unusual and low-budget B/W adventure from producer Roger Corman, directed by skillful Nathan Juran; one whose creators do a neat variation on the old tale of people kidnapped by a fugitive heading to somewhere and needing their vehicle or themselves as hostages. I find the storyline is straightforward and classic noir. Scene:  a casino in Las Vegas, a marine just back from service Marine (Richard Conte), buys a drink for platinum blonde (Mary Beth Hughes), and somehow insults her; so they have a public quarrel but then reconcile the problem.  The following  day, he is taken in by the sheriff an named the prime suspect in the girl's demise; she has been strangled. Using his military skills, he overpowers the officers holding him and sets out on the "lam". Troopers are checking the highways for him, hence the title, and also the state border; So he helps and hitches a ride with with a two women who have had car trouble. One is wealthy fashion photographer from New York, Joan Bennett; her young assistant, Wanda Hendrix, is the other. After a while the two try to rid themselves of him, but he stays with them--finally having to use force to have his way. He heads for the town where he grew up, for a climax, finding it under the waters of the Salton Sea. The film ends happily for Conte, but not before Bennett's dog has been killed, and he has been doubted severely and tested to the limit.  The film is inexpensive-looking and has indifferent dialogue by  but the story line is good, clean and memorable. Roger Corman devised the original story; four others had hands in the screenplay. There is original music by Edward Kay and some decent but hardly outstanding technical work. In the cast along with the principals are stalwart Reed Hadley, Frank Jenks, Iris Adrian, Harry Harvey,Tom Hubbard (one of the writers) and others all showing to advantage. I first saw this film nearly fifty years ago; and it is still memorable and satisfying; with more money and better dialogue, I believe these actors and the director could have made a fine narrative even better.

Roger Corman's First Gig

[dougdoepke · 5 June 2015]

Interesting chase drama. That opening bar scene with Conte and Hughes is a tacky gem. Too bad Hughes disappears much too soon. And where else can you find two of Hollywood's best cheap blondes, Hughes and Iris Adrian, in the same film. Too bad they don't have a scene together to see who can out-cheap the other.

Anyhow, Conte's escaping across the desert from Las Vegas cops for a murder he didn't commit. Along the way he dragoons two women, Bennett and Hendix, as sometimes helpers, sometimes hostages. The movie's real star, however, is a four-wheel hunk of junk that's a real trouper. That it can roll at all amounts to a Detroit miracle. But why someone would drive it off-road into the desert is a genuine puzzle. And that's a problem with the movie as a whole. It starts off well, but becomes a mounting stretch over time, especially movie star Bennett in her flowing white gown that never gets any dirtier despite a trip across the elements. Good thing Conte's there to carry the show. Too bad he didn't give Hendrix some acting lessons.

Credit some producer, maybe Roger Corman in his first gig, for filming doggedly on location. Those desert and Salton Sea stagings really help hold the flick together. Plus, someone had an eye on trends of the day. The title "Highway Dragnet" combines parts from two of the most successful TV crime series of the time, Namely "Dragnet" and "Highway Patrol". Then add cop Reed Hadley from "Racket Squad", and you've got a cross-section of early 50's thick- ear, which I'm sure didn't hurt attendance.

All in all, it's a pretty good little flick. Then too it's the only film, A or B, that I've seen where the happy couple repairs at movie's end to a run-down house half under water! So Hollywood can come up with new wrinkles, after all.

Pretty good chase flick

[BILLYBOY-10 · 6/10 · 28 October 2010]

Richard Conte is fresh out of the military and is in an old Las Vegas casino bar. He sits next to a lushed up floozy who used to be a hotsy totsy fashion model but now she's drunk and saggy. She insults him, he retorts and walks away, she follows him and they have an angry kiss amid the slots.Next day and now Conte is being arrested for killing the floozy. Of course he didn't. He escapes and gets a ride in the desert from Joan Bennett who is dressed as if she's going to a cocktail party and her assistant Wanda Hendrix. Drama ensues. Roadblocks they sneak by, some they avoid. A stopover at a motel, crashing thru a roadblock, lost in the desert, drama, revelations and finally Conte and Hendrix hook up at his submerged home in the Salton Sea (it's a long story). Then we discover Bennett killed the floozy; some old business with her and her dead husband. Oh, well. Alls well that ends well and all ends well. Soggy Salton Sea finish. Not bad at all. Surprisingly watchable.

Richard Conte flees the police

[blanche-2 · 6/10 · 17 August 2021]

Highway Dragnet seems like a B movie, and quite a drop in status for Joan Bennett.

Bennett and Richard Conte are the star, along with Wanda Hendrix.

Unjustly accused of the murder of a woman (Mary Beth Hughes) whom he met in a bar, former marine Jim Henry manages to overpower police and take off. After helping two women, Mrs. Cummings, a photographer, and her model, Susan Wilton (Bennett and Hendrix) with a car problem on the highway, Henry wangles a ride.

He has an alibi, a old friend he was with in Vegas who is supposed to help Jim with a problem at his home the next day. And what a problem - it's underwater in the Salton Sea.

With his photo on the front page, and cops coming from all directions, it's not long before Susan and Mrs. Cummings realize who he is - by then, it's too late. After pulling a gun, he pretends to be Cummings' assistant. And he pulls more neat tricks to escape the police. The trio end up taking a hazardous drive in the boiling hot desert.

The movie is notable for showing the old Las Vegas and also Graflex cameras, which were fun to see.

Susan's attraction to Jim after she realizes who he is I found rather odd.

The really odd thing to me was the presence of Bennett, a favorite of director Fritz Lang, the star of many films and a contender for Scarlett O'Hara. Why is it that Harrison Ford at 79 is still playing leads and actresses like Bennett, Merle Oberon, and Lana Turner had to resort to low-budget films?

When it comes to Hollywood, aging in women was fatal back then. It's better now, but I think there is a way to go.

"Ever get contaminated by a .45?"

[alminator1 · 7/10 · 21 October 2018]

A great story by U.S. Anderse and the legendary Roger Corman! Great plot, good acting & suspense. Wanda Hendrix was lovely & Joan Bennett was her fantastically snooty self.

A returning Korean War vet ends up on the run from Johnny Law after being accused of murdering a woman in Vegas, and his alibi cannot be reached. He is picked up hitchhiking by two women, one of whom actually benefits from the murder. This movie certainly has more twists and turns than the desert roads on which it was filmed.

JOAN BENNETT INVENTS "THE TWIST" WHILE IN QUICKSAND!!!

[sobaok · 6/10 · 4 June 2002]

This film is a real treat to watch due to the many absurdities that abound from scene to scene. After a shouting match in a barroom with a buxom over-the-hill blonde ex-model, Richard Conte, finds himself hitch- hiking to the Salton Sea where his house is rapidly disappearing from the rising shoreline! He's picked up by the police, who claim he murdered aforementioned blonde bombshell. Before you can blink an eye Conte's outta there and shooting holes in a classic Kaiser patrol car. He escapes in an old Nash which he abandons upon seeing Joan Bennett(wearing a dress made out of a parachute) and Wanda Hendrix trying to fix a broken-down sedan. He fixes things up while Joan's pooch becomes roadkill. Any 10 year-old has figured out the films outcome at this point. Conte becomes "Mr. Leash", the crazed killer, who gets a whole resort full of vacationers running for their lives. Conte, Joan and Wanda do everything but roast marshmellows over a desert campfire before Joan teaches them both how to do the "Twist" in an improbable puddle of quicksand near Conte's rapidly decaying, drowning dreamhome in the Salton Sea. This movie has a lot of unintentional laughs in it. A great bad movie.

Like A Three-Jewel Watch.

[rmax304823 · 7/10 · 10 July 2013]

I enjoyed this piece of what my current neighbors would call basura. I mean, it's done by the numbers. It's utterly stupid but exquisitely so.

Richard Conte is Jim Henry, just released from the USMC, decorated several times, so we know he's a good guy. He stops for a drink in a Las Vegas bar while hitch-hiking to meet a friend in California. He politely offers to buy a drunk for a frowzy blond sitting on the next stool. She initiates a fracas. The next morning she's found strangled with a strap. The police pin it on Conte and the papers dub him "The Strap Killer." Later, Conte muses, "Sure, I bought her a martini. Sixty-five cents worth of dynamite." (That's the closest we get to poetry.) But Conte escapes, and is reluctantly given a ride through the desert by two women, the professional photographer Joan Bennett and her model, young Wanda Hendrix. The women soon find out who Conte is supposed to be. The viewer with insight or experience will figure out the real murderer at about the half-way point.

The police spread a dragnet across points on the highway but Conte eludes them one way or another. You should see him smash through wooden barriers and demolish a couple of parked motorcycles. This is one tough swinging Jim.

Acting. Nobody wins the silver star here. Conte snaps out his lines in a brusque and commanding tone. His style, which hardly ever varied, doesn't clash with the character though. Joan Bennett, who was fine elsewhere, is here given a role that turns her into an irritating nuisance. Her New York accent sounds thoroughly specious and swank, with Albian overtones. "After" becomes "Ah-fter." Wanda Hendrix can't act.

The story is a kind of mechanical armature around which these three characters (four, if you count the sonorous Reed Hadley, the earnest cop) are molded. It's as if a couple of experienced writers of B features sat down and said, "Let's have the hero trying to escape from the police on a desert highway. How many different narrow escapes can we think of?" They did a good job. The close calls are uncountable. Somebody may look at Conte suspiciously and say, "Hey, didn't I just see your picture in the --", and the phone rings. Or the director cross cuts between police cars with their sirens ululating and Conte frantically trying to get gas at a station in the middle of nowhere. Only the owner is a lazy Mexican who has an old gas pump that is hand operated, and he ever-so-slowly pushes the handle back and forth while chatting amiably about how he and the ancient gas pump are "friends." It's all absurd and fun. Best thing about the movie is the location shooting, which nicely evokes the Mojave desert and, later, the climax at the Salton Sea. Maybe others might not like it as much as I do. It redintegrates memories of being a teen and being cooped up on a Coast Guard cutter that circled for weeks in mid-Pacific. Once in a while, an old movie would be shown at night, and this was one of them. We wept with joy. And Wanda Hendrix, actress or not, looked pretty good.

Man on the run

[russjones-80887 · 6/10 · 21 July 2020]

After meeting a girl in a Las Vegas bar, a Korean veteran leaves town but later she is found dead and the police pick him up on suspicion of murder. He escapes from custody and hitches a ride with a photographer and her model.

Low-budget but worthwhile crime film and the first for which Roger Corman had a credit, this time as co-writer. Richard Conte plays the man on the run with Joan Bennett and Wanda Hendrix co-starring as the photographer and model, although the two are only along for the ride.

She's fast and furious, sending him on that highway to hell.

[mark.waltz · 5/10 · 30 March 2013]

An obviously drunken floozy (Mary Beth Hughes) is p.o.'d when drifter Richard Conte sits down next to her and responds to her model picture on the wall with a "used to be beautiful" response, tearing up on him like Muhammed Ali on Joe Frazier. He silences her with a kiss, and the next thing you know, he's being booked for her murder! Escaping from the police, he hooks up a ride with matronly Joan Bennett and her assistant Wanda Hendrix after helping them with their car, and before you know it, they are all avoiding the police, as it turns out Bennett knew the victim too, obviously not with much affection....

This is an enjoyable film noir with some implausibilities, but that does not stop it from being fun. You can't forget Hughes in her brief bit at the beginning, obviously suffering from one too many (and that includes men), and sadly, she is gone far too fast. I would have liked some flashbacks of her earlier story, especially once it came known that she had encounters with the women Conte ends up with. He is always a great anti-hero in films like this, someone you like but still don't fully trust. Bennett is still gorgeous with that smooth martini voice and the memory of her in early film noir like "Woman in the Window" is not forgotten. Her seemingly secure lady here has more than meets the eye to her. It's obvious that the romance is meant between Conte and Hendrix, but there's fire in Joan that hasn't quite sizzled as the years have gone by.

There's a fun cameo by "tough gal" Iris Adrian as a waitress who has had enough (tossing a menu at Conte's table as if she was a card dealer in Las Vegas) plus mostly gritty outdoor photography that keeps this a "day noir" as opposed to most of them which were "night noir". Passionate animal lovers beware, however, that there is a scene with a small dog that they may find disturbing. All in all, however, this isn't bad considering this was late in the film noir genre and that it was made by Allied Artists, the studio that took over Monogram just a few years before.

Predictable but Delightful Pulp

[RyanNijakowski · 9/10 · 23 August 2019]

Once the poor dog (who was supposed to be on a leash) was hit by a car and killed, I knew what the murder weapon was. Still, I found this desert road-trip film with the often-used "wrong man" theme to be quite a fun film noir.

PEDESTRIAN POLICE CHASE WITH A FEW HIGH-LIGHTS...OVERRATED

[LeonLouisRicci · 6/10 · 8 September 2021]

Somewhat Straight-Forward at times Overheated Open-Sky Desert Police Chase.

Directed by Journeyman Nathan Juran and Notable as Roger Corman's First Screen Credit for Producer and Story.

Starring Joan Bennett, Richard Conte, and Wanda Hendrix,.

This Decidedly B-Movie did Bennett's Sliding Career No Favors as She seems Out-Of-It and Looks Awful and Beleaguered.

Richard Conte is OK and Wanda Hendrix is Sparky and Spunky while Playing Bennett's Assistant, and Perhaps more, as a "Tomboyish" Model.

The Dialog has some "Pulpish" Nuance.

But the Predictable Story Unfolds almost at a Leisurely Pace, with a Cliched Climax.

Although the Setting of "The Salton Sea" in the End makes for an Off-Beat Backdrop.

This One has its Fans but is Overrated.

Watchable and Enjoyable as a Time-Passer but Don't Expect an Edgy Noir or anything that Raises this to the Heights of the Genre.

Roger Corman Gets Some Credit

[boblipton · 5/10 · 17 January 2020]

Richard Conte, newly released from the armed forces, is in Las Vegas to meet a friend. First, he has an encounter with a B-girl. The next morning, as he tries to hitch a ride seven miles outside the city, he's picked up by the police under the command of Reed Hadley. The girl has been strangled, and Conte's dog tags were found beneath her. He gets the drop on the cops and high tails it out of town, only to hook up with magazine photographer Joan Bennett and her model, Wanda Hendrix.

There are some big holes in the plot, and some wild coincidences to make everything come out in Hollywood fashion. On the other hand, the actors are solid, Harry Harvey has a small, semi-comical role that advances the plot, and the denouement in a house in the Salton Sea makes a good setting for this early Desert Noir.

Part of the problems in the script can be ascribed to this being the first credited writing and producing job for Roger Corman. He had done some uncredited script work on THE GUNFIGHTER, but now, he had Allied Artists doing the distribution, William Broidy producing and Nathan Juran directing. All were exponents of the we-want-It-Tuesday school of non-excellence.

I guess it was good enough to turn a profit.

Although Miss Bennett is wasted in her role, the other named actors are good, and there are lots of other old-time performers to space things up.

"If We Don't Get Him, The Desert Will!"...

[azathothpwiggins · 12 July 2021]

Richard Conte plays Korean War veteran, Jim Henry, who goes on the run after a woman he met in Las Vegas is found murdered. Henry happens upon two women (Joan Bennett and Wanda Hendrix) having car trouble. After fixing their car, he hitches a ride with them. As they travel along, we discover that Henry's not the only one with a secret.

Meanwhile, the dogged detective Joe White Eagle (Reed Hadley) is on Henry's trail.

HIGHWAY DRAGNET is a snappy little noir-thriller. Conte is great in his pursued role, as is Hadley in his. Ms.' Bennett and Hendrix are also well cast.

Recommended for fans of noir-ish chase films...

It's the Salton see!

[kapelusznik18 · 6/10 · 28 January 2014]

****SPOILERS**** Richard Conte is recently honorably discharged US Marine Jim Henry who's on the run from the police and state troopers, in both Nevada & California, for a murder that he didn't commit. It's this floozy that Jim got friendly in a Vages casino the drunk and abusive Terry Smith, Mary Beth Hughes, who he's suspected of murdering by strangling her with a dog collar. Could the woman have been involved in an S&M session that went horribly wrong? Well anyway with no witness to his being innocent of this horrible crime with his only witness to his innocence being an old Marine buddy working undercover, thus not using his real name, for the government it's no surprise that Jim flew the coop ending up a fugitive from the law.

It's while on the run in the Nevada Desert that Jim got hooked up with fashion photographer Mrs. Cummings, Joan Bennett, and her teenage model Susan Willis, Wanda Hendrix, who gave him a lift. Even though Susan was nuts about the handsome ex-marine Mrs. Cummings have reservations about him. And although the entire movie a determined Mrs. Cummings tried to not just turn him over to the police, she knew he was wanted for murder, but do her best to kill him, like in a car accident, herself.

It's not until the by now lovers Jim & Susan were tracked down by the police lead by Det. Let. Joe White Eagle, obviously a native American, played Reed Hadley that the whole truth came out in not only Jim's innocence but the reason Mrs. Cummings wanted to shut him up, by murdering him, permanently! The film's ending at Jim's place in his almost underwater home, with a swimming pool in each room, situated on the edge of the Salton Sea has the truth finally come out or surface to who killed the late Terry Smith and the reasons why. It was quite obviously from the start who Terry's murderer was in that all the evidence, from her killer's own mouth, pointed to him or her. As the film went on the killer in knowing that Jim by proving his innocence will expose him he did everything in his power to shut him up by murdering him. This not only tipped off Jim to who he was but also the police including Chief Det. Let. Joe White Eagle who Terry's murderer also tried to do in.

The very first touch of Roger Corman in Cinema Industry, not bad entry!!

[elo-equipamentos · 7/10 · 29 October 2023]

The first intro of Roger Corman on cinema industry, he wrote the story and co-produced this smallest chase Noir at desert area, when a discharged mariner from Korea Jim Henry (Richard Conte) meets a blonde bombshell Terry Smith (Mary Beth Hughes) a former New York model now a B-girl on the bar catching wealthy customers for a pleasant night, after a small quarrel witnessed by the crowed bar, he slipping away from there, late he Jim is arrested by the police and accused by his murder as Strap Killer due his belongs was found at crime scene.

Get rid from the police he meets at road a broken car of Mrs. Cummings (Joan Bennett) and his model fashion model Susan (Wanda Hendrix), he aids them fixing the car and hitchhikes and start running from the local police, odd enough the two women have a connection with Terry's death due the husband of Mrs. Cummings had an affair with Terry and committed suicide aftermaths, meanwhile the police settles several highway's barriers to catch him, Jim Henry got mislead them and flee into desert, should be a death knell for all them.

Aside some strange coincidences the story is very attractive indeed, mainly at swimming pool at roadside Hotel and on fabulous landscape at California's desert, sadly the beauty Mary Beth Hughes poorly used on movie, should be interesting expose her last day alive on the apartment where she found death, what stunning girl, the low point certainly the contrive confession scene at quicksand, rookie move, overall a good entertainment.

Thanks for reading

Resume:

First watch: 2023 / How many: 1 / Source: DVD / Rating: 7.

a Roger Corman story

[SnoopyStyle · 6/10 · 29 October 2023]

Recently discharged Marine Jim Henry (Richard Conte) has a heated interaction with drunken bar patron Terry Smith at a Vegas casino. Later while hitchhiking, he gets picked up by the cops. He's interrogated by Lt. Joe White Eagle (Reed Hadley) who reveals Terry Smith's dead body. He escapes from custody and encounters magazine photographer Mrs. H. G. Cummings (Joan Bennett) and her model Susan Willis (Wanda Hendrix) after their car breaks down.

The big name here may be Roger Corman who co-wrote the story. It's one of his first credits. The premise is fine. The tension isn't that high or at least, it could be higher. This may work better if Jim isn't played like falsely accused right from the start. Give the man some murky mystery. It would make the girls' predicament a bit more dangerous. As for the twist, convenient is not enough of a word. The twist, the reveal, and the confession all together is a bit too much. I would skip all that.

Surprising Well Done Noir

[DKosty123 · 7/10 · 25 April 2022]

Roger Corman the Producer wrote the story for this one. It's a good story that does twist in a direction that the viewer can not anticipate. They do drop a hint or 2 as it goes along but this ride is a pretty solid film for a budget B film. Seems the more films I watch from the mid 1950's, the more films I find that are good stories.

The opening scenes of this film with old Las Vegas and the Apache Hotel are priceless to folks who remember that era when Bugsy and the mob ruled the strip. This film title threw me because when I see the word Dragnet, I think of Jack Webb tv series. This film is far away from it.

An aged showgirl, who used to be a model, is murdered on the strip. An ex-marine who was with her in the Casino is pinned for the murder by a Native American Vegas detective. The evidence is all set up to frame him but who done it? Richard Conte is excellent in a sort of role like the Fugitive on TV. The police keep trying to close in but he enlists the help of 2 women to help him escape several times. Only the women aren't quite what they seem to be when he meets them on the road.

What impresses me for low budget is the quality of the script and the quality of the cast as everyone seems to fit their roles well. The main thing is the plot makes sense as it runs through but am surprised that the cast did not roast to death shooting this. This is Hollywood magic. The beating the cars take is pretty amazing too. Conte works out to be a pretty good roadside mechanic who fixes cars and his life in the process.

Rock It Baby!

[hitchcockthelegend · 5/10 · 17 March 2017]

Highway Dragnet is directed by Nathan Juran and written by Herb Meadow, U.S.Anderson, Roger Corman and Jerome Odlum. It stars Richard Conte, Joan Bennett, Wanda Hendrix and Reed Hadley. Music is by Edward J. Kay and cinematography by John J. Martin.

All I did was buy her a drink. One drink, and for 65 cents I bought a martini mixed with dynamite!

Though indexed in some sources as film noir, this barely resonates as such. It is basically a man on the lam picture, where Conte is wrongly accused of murder and has to go on the run to escape police arrest. He hitches with two gals, who start to become wary of their newly acquired companion. So, we have cops trying to capture their target, with near misses and with Reed "The Voice" Hadley heading up the dragnet operation, whilst there's the mystery element of who is the killer hanging in the air. Cast are fine and the production is standard fare, the finale at least serves up an atmospheric locale, and there's some decent snatches of dialogue. But really it's average at best and not one to seek out as a matter of urgency. 5/10

Love these old silly movies

[demiurgiac · 9/10 · 16 October 2021]

While this one can easily be picked apart on several levels, we loved it. There is more to old movies than having a tight plot and great acting.

Also, if you have already watched it, Google "Sultan Sea". Very interesting 'real' story how "his family" home came to be under water.

The Strap Killer

[bkoganbing · 4/10 · 4 August 2015]

The budget on this noir film is as thin as dental floss and the story was rushed into a limited time frame. But Highway Dragnet does have its moments as Richard Conte newly discharged Korean War veteran has himself in a beautiful jackpot over the beautiful Mary Beth Hughes.

Not the quick moments with her. But the fact Conte is accused of killing her after having a quick fling. In fact Mary Beth's small role at the beginning of Highway Dragnet is the best thing in the movie.

Conte's arrested by Las Vegas cop Reed Hadley but he escapes from him and now there's a big manhunt on for him. Conte happens to hook up with magazine photographer Joan Bennett and model Wanda Hendrix. That turns out to be a dubious occurrence.

The plot is a thin one and about halfway through you know exactly what the real story is. Still there's a modicum of suspense.

And any film with Mary Beth Hughes and Iris Adrian playing a truck-stop hash slinger is worth watching.

Too many coincidences, clichés and dumb mistakes to make this worth your time.

[planktonrules · 3/10 · 4 January 2013]

"Highway Dragnet" is a frustrating film. The actors do a pretty good job and the look of the film is quite nice. It's too bad, then, that the writing was so lousy. In fact, the film is filled with so many logical holes that it resembles cheese! Richard Conte plays a Korean War vet who has just returned home. He's decided to visit Las Vegas and ends up getting into a ton of trouble. That's because after having a loud altercation with a dame in a bar, she ends up dead and all the facts seem to point towards him. So what does he do? Yup, crime film cliché #5--he slugs the cops and disappears!! And, when he hitches a ride out of town, surprise of surprises, one of the ladies driving this car eventually ends up being the real murderer!!! What are the odds?! And, to make it worse, at the end of the film, this murderous woman shoots a detective at point blank range with a .45--and the guy is only SLIGHTLY wounded!!! He SHOULD have had a hole in him large enough to drive through, but miraculously he survives AND hears her make a confession to the original murder!!!! How convenient! Can any of this really happen in the real world? No way! But in this bizarre film, time and again, the impossible seems to occur--making it a very sloppily written movie. It's a shame, as Conte did a good job and he was a fine actor who was simply better than the material they gave him. You can do better than this with your viewing time.

Roger Corman's first production is a wonderful noir thriller

[Elvis-Del-Valle · 9/10 · 1 January 2024]

A classic noir thriller that presents a spectacular crime story. This very first production by the talented Roger Corman, contains a good solid script that presents someone accused of a crime willing to try to prove his innocence, although he ends up involved in a kidnapping of two young girls and one of them being a crucial part of the plot twist. Final. Although it is a production that is not linked to one of the major Hollywood studios, it is a film with impeccable quality in every sense. Highway Dragnet is another amazing 1950s film worth checking out. My final rating for this movie is a 9/10.

Too Many Coincidences Spoil the Broth - Highway Dragnet

[arthur_tafero · 5/10 · 25 October 2023]

I wonder what would be the odds of a man running away from the police for a murder he did not commit running into the real murderer on the road while he is trying to get away? 1000 to 1? 10,000 to 1? Better chance of winning the Lotto? That is what we are faced with in this film. We are expected to believe that a lotto coincidence takes place and that Richard Conte (decent actor) eventually finds a way to extract himself from a Rambo-type situation manhunt with the help of a convenient Hollywood ending. I'm sorry, but this film falls under the category of good try, but no cigar. The chances you would find a romantic interest as well as having your problem solved in the same time frame is also highly unlikely.