I like the non-linear nature of the story. A young and full of strength, the hero comes from the war and faces the impotence of his father. There is nothing he can do about being left without a penny. A determined hero immediately takes the matter under control. But instead of the expected revenge, he gets into the apple trade. Find where to buy cheaper, transport and sell more expensive. That's the easy thing. But here is the whole intrigue.
Is it possible to create tension around carrying apples? Jules Dassen does it. And so we get the forerunner of the "fear pay." There is no doubt that Clouseau was inspired by the Thieves’ Highway.
Is it possible to create tension around a vile and cowardly fruit wholesaler? Lee J. Cobb here plays a real scumbag who confidently robs rushing hard workers. His character is a combination of impudence, cunning and false bluster. Posing as a respectable merchant and hiding behind the smoke from expensive cigars, he is ready to twist ingenious combinations, sending either corrupt women or thugs. And this Cobb character is rightfully the forerunner of Brando's antagonist from In Port. Moreover, the entire market criminal life from the above picture of Kazan was apparently inspired by Dassen’s Thieves’ Highway.
The love line is also beautifully shown in the tape. Our hero finds himself between two ambitious women. He's so caught up in the struggle that he doesn't even notice how he's pushing them. In the tapes of Dassen there were always episodes “on the edge”, where the characters seemed to do nothing special, but as a result “broke” moral boundaries. That's what happened in this picture. Quite friendly conversation between a couple who are preparing for marriage takes place in the room of the motel, where a little while ago there was an intimacy between the same man and a completely different woman. With such a simple move, Dassen great exposes the shortcomings of the protagonist, who is apparently absorbed in his exploits, simply noticing the feelings of people close to him.
I will note the exquisitely selected contrast between the two ladies - the rude Valentina Cortese and so reminiscent of Barbara Lawrence's Barbie seem incredibly different, but at the same time, each of them admires the directness and self-admiration of Richard Conte.
In conclusion, we must say about the “synthetic ending”. The policeman's training does not give an accurate assessment of everything that happened. The ending can only be called positive formally. We cannot fully understand the final position of the protagonist. Did he get his way? Make money? Punish the guilty? To my taste, Jules Dassin even allows himself to chuckle at Richard Conte's future in some ways. With the lady he chose, he can hardly be safe.
In addition to the plot, “The Thieves’ Highway” is a storehouse of elegant visual images. Apples, as a symbol of temptation, become the trigger for the most dangerous changes in the lives of many characters. Crumbled apples after the accident. Lee J. Cobb, who cynically bites and spits out an apple. The truck that crushed Richard Conte. Washing in the soul Valentina Cortese while the man interested in her finds out the relationship with his bride.
Each of these moments is incomparably "caught" by Dassen.
8 out of 10
Interesting for the first 20-25 minutes of the film, where the civil war is very clearly and accurately shown all against all - die today, and I will never die - because I (lucky, smart, good, sneaky, etc.) need to frame. The utter triumph of individualism, so fiercely glorified by cultures. With the finale shown - death and mutilation sit side by side in the cockpit of drivers - bright individuals. They wait after successful deals and in the company of fatal ladies. It is a pity that the accents so clearly placed in the film, so beautifully captured on film in the cinematic episodes are smeared with the finale of the picture, where evil is punished both on the individual and public-state lines. A sweet-sweet ending, summarizing the shown timeless signs of the struggle for existence in the dominant system to the private history of the series - if someone is somewhere, we sometimes have. . .
The middle of the film is filled with unexplained throwing and fractures of the arc of GG’s character – says one thing, acts differently, declares himself one – looks the exact opposite, somehow he assesses himself and his forces incorrectly, giving in, for example, to the charm of the first lady with reduced social responsibility. Yes, and the lady herself is also discharged in turmoil - with sharp changes in behavior and no less drastic decisions. In general, confusion, where the authors try to explain class differences and the general ideology of society with personal and individual motives. And from film to film, from generation to generation of cultures of workers it happens - an example ' Convoy' from 1978, where also a complete failure in the motivation of characters to act.
The beginning is a standard for exposing the cap. system with examples showing its terrible essence, disgusting to man - after all, the same competitors for apples do not pass by the troubles and accidents of their colleagues in the ram. The middle is a terrible confusion from the personal opinion of the authors on the essence of the stated phenomena, based on a sensual-emotional basis, without knowledge of causes and effects.
This film is usually praised and compared with the later and having the cult status of the work of Henri-Georges Clouseau “The Payment for Fear” (1953). But for me, the Thieves Highway never aroused enthusiasm, and somewhere in the middle of the story I began to yawn. It happens: there was no reciprocity and no one is to blame.
The story begins in the intonations of noir: Nick Carso returns home from a sea voyage with presents, but discovers that his father has lost his handicapped body and is unable to try on his new shoes. The father of services behind the wheel of a truck and got into an accident, but this case was set up by dealers who did not want to pay the driver for the delivered fruit. Nick undertakes to get even with the abusers, return the truck and the money laid for his father. But the narrative makes a sharp turn: Nick himself gets behind the wheel of a truck and enters into a deal to deliver the first harvest of scarce Golden Delisches apples to San Francisco. And do not understand what now moves him: the feeling of revenge or the desire to break the jackpot.
In fact, Nick voluntarily merges into a semi-criminal scheme for the functioning of the fruit market in the big city. In it, the right is the one who is faster, cunning, brazen, has the necessary connections and experience. As you can see, risk is not always a noble thing.
The father of singer Joe Dassin, Jules Dassin, told the story, starting with the bright colors of a sunny day, gradually reaching the dark gray tones of the night highways. There are beautiful moments (apples rolling around the garden), there are tense (a punched wheel). It does not do without the charm of a fatal woman. But the atmosphere is shattered by the primitiveness of history. Nick will get a six-fold profit from apples or it will be smaller - not so interesting for an outsider question.
6 out of 10
Sailor Nick Garcos returns home. He learns that his father has been in an accident carrying fruit in a truck and is unable to walk. Together with another driver, he takes a cargo of apples to San Francisco. But the fraudster and trader Mike Figley deceives him.
Director Jules Dassen masterfully reproduces an uncomplicated plot from the lives of ordinary hard workers - truck drivers. The picture looks great and only too artificial happy ending slightly lubricates the impression, given the general gloomy style of the narrative.
The film is notable for the fact that all the characters are ordinary people. Nick Garcos was perfectly played by classical noir regular Richard Conte. And the main villain in the magnificent performance of Lee J. Cobb is played so realistically and believably that ordinary noir villains pale in front of him. They are played by Valentina Cortese and Barbara Lawrence. By the way, the film interestingly turned the classic genre triangle hero-rock woman-virtuous friend of the hero.
One of the best examples of classical noir.
The introduction attracts a combination of ordinary pastoral and oriental exoticism - boardwalk walls and linen, unassumingly hung in the yard on a rope, and immediately returned home from foreign lands, the young man lays out overseas hotels in front of his parents and bride. Lamps from India, objects from China, Japan, Africa, Melanesian islands, Mandarin slippers. Earrings worn by dancers from Java... but this euphoria is not for long, because soon wedges into the narrative moments that are perhaps frequent in the Indian film about revenge, well, like “Revenge and the law”. The returning son does not immediately notice that his father lost his legs, but after noticing, he firmly decides to take revenge.
My truck was loaded with tomatoes. They were the first of the season.
And revenge will certainly take place, but in this case it will have to wait a little... because it is so unpalatable, sustained, skillfully portrayed. And no matter how much you resent revenge, with all sorts of stiffness and decency, here you do not want to blame the hero even close for it. Of course, for decency here inserted the sublime saying of the policeman that, say, there is nothing to do lynching, but it looks not too convincing and rather as a tribute to the Hayes code. Somehow behind the scenes it is implied that if the police were more responsible for their duties, it would not be necessary to take justice into their own hands.
To be honest, not so often and at that time, and filmed then quite qualitatively, there were such a strong everyday life, such colorful and textured characters. Human greed, self-interest, deceitfulness, obsceneness are presented here extremely sharply, but the most worthy qualities do not lag behind. Friendship, family relations, personal life – all reflected with extraordinary sympathy and sincerity.
Don't you like girls?
- Why not? I’ve always dreamed of a little sister with pigtails here...
No matter what, the piquancy was crammed too - curiously, how did the Hayes code treat girls scratching a man's naked torso with their nails? And beauty is amazing how attractive he can look diligently, at the limit working, emaciated guy in a sweat-soaked shirt. Abrupt plot twists, slow execution, dangerous, long hours of traveling in a truck. And even though it often becomes creepy here, but at the same time it is so beautiful that such a narrative can swirl around the juicy ripe apples of Golden Delishes!
Shot directly ahead of two obvious masterpieces, Dassen's film loses to them very much. He also loses in the psychological drawing, the dramatic filmed a little later by Clouseau about two drivers who were carrying dynamite. “The Thieves’ Highway” can be perceived as a standard of genre classic cinema, despite the fact that it cannot be attributed to a certain genre. In principle, there is a melodramatic love line, a criminal line, but the film is very similar to what John Houston did. The one, as you know, in whatever genre he did not shoot, the motive of doom, defeat, hostility of the factum brought to the fore (in the next films of Dassen this is also there).
I must say that the author, whether the producer smoothed the ending and instead of asking for a mountain of corpses, everything ended in a conditional and very “Hollywood” stamped idyll. However, O. Henry pointed out that there is nothing like a couple, withdrawing, holding hands, deep into the movie screen.
7 out of 10