273 Thieves' Highway

[colinr0380]

The latest Out Of The Past podcast is a fantastic discussion of the film (the only slight problem is that Eddie Muller doesn't seem to know that Brute Force has come out as a Criterion as he refers to the older DVD not being as good quality as the Criterion Dassins!)

Also tantalisingly Muller mentions at the end of the podcast that later in 2008 and early 2009 the Film Noir Foundation will be announcing the discovery of some missing films - he doesn't reveal the titles though!

[jesus the mexican boi]

I just saw this over the weekend myself, having happily stumbled into a bargain at Hastings -- 3 Criterions, ex-rentals but each looking like they'd never been checked out -- Thieves' Highway, Young Mr. Lincoln and Youth of the Beast, for about $15 total.

Color me floored.

Not much more to add to the great comments here; I was also struck by the easy familiarity of the "non-Anglo" cast, the amazing cinematography and editing (surely that white-knuckled brakeless truck careening downhill belongs in the great car crash sequences, complete with rolling apples), and the fantastic ensemble performances (big shoutout to Jack Oakie here, too). Valentina Cortese seemed to me a proto-Monica Vitti, particularly in La Notte (where her character is named Valentina). I know the Zanuck ending is a bother, but it seems to me that Dassin and Bezzerides got away with murder in this one, in terms of the sex and violence on screen (the threat of the hatchet is particularly awesome).

Beautiful, beautiful movie. Shot to the top of my noir list, with a bullet. This is one I'd love to see in a theater, with a crowd unaware of its magic. Spellbinding.

[matrixschmatrix]

The Barnes and Noble website's synopsis of this is bizarre- according to it, the movie has a tragic ending wherein "Nick has permanently lost Polly because of his involvement with the gangsters and his change in personality from a good guy to a more sinister businessman." It's close enough to be clear they were referring to the right movie, but I have a hard time imagining how you'd reach that conclusion from the events.

In any case, this movie snuck up on me- I was a bit drowsy when I started watching, and imitating Nick when he was half asleep on the road. Perhaps as a result, I hadn't found the movie particularly involving up to that point. The movie didn't seem to have a particular viewpoint, and the events being recounted didn't seem inherently all that interesting.

As soon as Rica showed up, though, I was hooked. The character dynamics, from there on in, became largely a series of people finding some decency through comparison with something nastier- mostly with reference to Figlia, although Rica's came through Polly. Though the happy ending did seem somewhat tacked on, I think it was preferable to the alternatives- the implausible cops are still less unsettling than, say, Nick just beating Figlia to death, or even an unleavened sense of justice through brutality. And I much prefer a happy ending where the hero runs off with the personable, interesting hooker to one where somehow Queen Whitebread turns heroic.

I haven't seen Night and the City, and for the first twenty minutes or so I was thinking I would go on without seeing it- but now I don't know if I can hold out.

[mteller]

Night of the City > Thieves' Highway

[jorencain]

Night of the City > Thieves' Highway

Seconded. "Night and the City" is one of my favorite noirs. Do yourself a favor and check it out, if you haven't already.

[matrixschmatrix]

Yeah, I've heard that Night and the City is the major work of the two- I've got it and Brute Force being held at my local B&N now.

[knives]

Night and the City is easily my favorite if just for Widmark's winning performance. Just let him grin and you'll have a highly entertaining movie. Of course there's much more, but you shouldn't need more of an excuse to watch.

[zedz]

Well, let me be contrary and say that I prefer Thieves' Highway to Night and the City by a considerable distance. Even though the latter is more self-consciously a 'big' movie, Thieves' Highway has a grimy intensity that few films match. Anyway, collect 'em all.

[aox]

I like Thieves' Highway more that Night and the City as well, especially the highway scenes that have the same intensity to me as Clouzot's The Wages of Fear. Still, I think I prefer The Naked City to both. But, I am a huge Law and Order fan.

[Cold Bishop]

I think the ending is the only thing keeping Thieves' Highway from reaching the heights of Night and the City or Riffifi. A similar thing might be said of the flashbacks in Brute Force, but they're ultimately filler, pure fluff that doesn't harm the actual trajectory of the narrative, while the denouement here completely upends the film. I don't think The Naked City ever overcomes being a simple procedural, despite being gorgeous to look at.

I still have fingers crossed that someone eventually would find the ending Dassin originally shot, but I doubt anyone's even looking.

[colinr0380]

The Barnes and Noble website's synopsis of this is bizarre- according to it, the movie has a tragic ending wherein "Nick has permanently lost Polly because of his involvement with the gangsters and his change in personality from a good guy to a more sinister businessman." It's close enough to be clear they were referring to the right movie, but I have a hard time imagining how you'd reach that conclusion from the events...

...And I much prefer a happy ending where the hero runs off with the personable, interesting hooker to one where somehow Queen Whitebread turns heroic.

I agree. I always thought Polly was rather broadly portrayed as unsympathetic, or at least marriage and money fixated, although that might just be because she only has a couple of big scenes: the one at the opening where, as Nick is showering his family with ostentatious gifts, she gives a very unconvincing thank you for the doll until she sees the ring and almost explodes with happiness (which makes her seem very materialistic and rather too focused on getting the shiny ring rather than really appreciating the relationship that the ring is just supposed to symbolise), and the scene near the end where she gives the ultimatum to Nick about their relationship and storms out.

Nick may have 'permanently lost Polly', but I don't think that is portrayed in the film as being too much of a loss for either party. Perhaps it may have been for Nick if she had done it at the begining of the film (if the doll had been ringless), but he's 'matured' in a number of senses by the point she does make her move.

You have made me consider the way that Night and the City interestingly contrasts with Thieves' Highway in the sense that, although the theme is more of a subplot than up front, there it is the guy who really doesn't deserve the girl in the dysfunctional relationship. And also that the underworld/alternate reality is generally portrayed in a more positive, and honourable, light (apart from a few 'bad apples' ) in both, contrasted against a slightly distrusting idea of the idealised family and home life that is sometimes portrayed in an almost parodical manner. The idealism of a better life is illusory either because they literally are a character's fantasies of what could be or, as in the revelation of the father having been crippled at the opening of Thieves, flimsy papering over something much darker.

[HerrSchreck]

Well, let me be contrary and say that I prefer Thieves' Highway to Night and the City by a considerable distance. Even though the latter is more self-consciously a 'big' movie, Thieves' Highway has a grimy intensity that few films match. Anyway, collect 'em all.

Ditto-- there's something a touch disjointed narratively about Night that keeps me at a bit of a distance from total absorption... despite the astonishing photography and location work, Gene Tierney is not believable for me as Widmark's gal, and Hugh Marlowe seems to have walked in out of one of his 50's Sci Fi films and not sure what the frick he's even doing there except give Tierney a future.

Yet, despite the scrambled nature of some of these attachments (Tierney had the part created for her as a favor from Zanuck as she was flipping her pan lid at the time) I do love the film once it settles in with Wid and Googie and all the street urchins that comprise the core.

But Thieves Highway is simply ferocious and assembled magnificently. Even Zanuck's silly happy ending cannot dampen the afterburn of Conte's cathartic explosion on Cobb "For my POP" WACK "For my POP" THWACK!!!.

Probably the venerable Conte's best good guy performance (his best villain must be BIG COMBO by a mile).

[denti alligator]

I actually didn't like Night and the City the first time. Crazy, I know. But Thieves' Highway hit me as shot for shot brilliant the first time through. Visceral, indeed. What a film!

[HinkyDinkyTruesmith]

Old thread, but, I figured I'd post this here rather than in the (now closed) 40s list thread, although I wish I had seen this in time for it, as it riveted me like few films have. I was genuinely close to talking to the TV, trying to get Nick to stop doing stupid things. But for a more formal writeup:

Like 1949's other noir masterpiece THE THIRD MAN, this depicts a generally likable protagonist who doesn't get it, at all. Doesn't get when to shut his mouth, what people are like, what's a rotten deal. Dassin uses this, along with several introductory vignettes (the sale at the apple orchard, the interactions with fellow truck drivers, the instigating swindles that Nick's father is involved in) to instill a general distrust of human nature that carries throughout the film, and permeates everyone Nick is surrounded by. Every time he cuts away from something, tension rises. A good break is followed by a bad one. The chaos of the universe is complicated by the cruelty of humanity. Trucks can break down, apples can go bad, tires can blow out, but crooks can undersell, cut tires, mug you. Any moment a character turns their back, looks the other way, isn't on guard, someone is plotting against them. Figlia lies about how much he paid Rica––to what end? It's in his nature, he's done it so many times it just slips out.

This is a rich, textured film. Dassin's mise-en-scene, and the script's generosity to secondary characters, groups of people––apple pickers, bar patrons, truck drivers––opens up the narrative of the film to an entire worldview. Things happen beyond what's right in front of us. And like THE THIRD MAN, while Nick is preciously simple, the woman isn't. Rica technically is the hooker with the heart of gold, but Valentina Cortese and the script work in tandem to expand her soul outward, and invest her with little contours that enliven her: the way her moods shift when she's first in her room with Nick, the way she slowly works her way to virtue when Figlia starts to sell Nick's apples, or when she tries to carry Polly's suitcase. Polly declines: because she's suspicious of this woman's relationship to Nick? Or because she thinks Rica might steal it? How deeply can you see into someone's soul just from their face?