Scanialara You won't be disappointed!

Cathardincu Surprisingly incoherent and boring

Platicsco Good story, Not enough for a whole film

Quiet Muffin This movie tries so hard to be funny, yet it falls flat every time. Just another example of recycled ideas repackaged with women in an attempt to appeal to a certain audience.

hrkepler 'Highway Dragnet' is mediocre murder mystery where twist is uncovered before half the film is over. Rest of the movie we can enjoy by the numbers pursuit picked with cliché tension risers and occasional quirky characters for comic relief.Richard Conte stars as James Henry, a marine wrongfully accused for the murder of fashion model. He escapes from the police and while on the flee he helps out two women with car trouble - photographer Mrs. Cummings (probably Joan Bennet's worst performance of her career) and another fashion model Susan (Wanda Hendrix).It is really a second rate film-noir that some Roger Corman fans might look out for curiosity to see the film based on the screenplay that legendary 'King of the Bs' ever sold. He also served as associate producer just for an experience. There can be no better film school than is the experience working on a motion picture.

dougdoepke 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.

secondtake 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.

BILLYBOY-10 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.