Synopsis
Highroad to Action and Romance!
A young woman marries a man who turns out to be a bank robber.
1941 Directed by William C. McGann
A young woman marries a man who turns out to be a bank robber.
Brenda Marshall Arthur Kennedy William Lundigan Olympe Bradna Slim Summerville Noel Madison Dorothy Tree Willie Best Pat Flaherty Frank Wilcox John Ridgely William B. Davidson Dick Rich James Westerfield Victor Zimmerman Dorothy Adams Erville Alderson Herbert Anderson Trevor Bardette Wade Boteler George Campeau Nat Carr Glen Cavender Frederick Clarke Garrett Craig Peggy Diggins John Dilson Douglas Evans Sol Gorss Show All…
taking place entirely along california route 99, this movie inadvertently put me back on my impromptu central valley film track. arthur kennedy is great at playing total creeps and he’s perfect in this one, a real psycho. however, casting the french-accented olympe bradna to play a rural girl who has never even been to san francisco, and dreams of traveling the world, was a strange and distracting idea. no matter, there’s plenty of excitement in this one, with almost enough bank robberies, jail breaks, armored car holdups, high speed chases, grand theft auto, and fatal shootouts to balance out the weaker parts of the story, which mostly involve the machinations and trivialities of small town life. don’t rush out to see this, but there are certainly worse crime dramas of the 40s that you could spend an hour on.
home, tcm
From its unmemorable title, to its inappropriate all-purpose score that adds nothing to the tension or intrigue, to the sister of the main female American protagonist played by Olympe Bradna, whose faint European accent makes no sense whatsoever for the character, this is a pale, wan B-movie. Arthur Kennedy is his usual completely professional self, but the movie itself just doesn't work, and the cheery ending feels... just so wrong.
Remake of Heat Lightning (1934) and a fairly good one for a crime movie of the B-variety. Slim Summerville brings the laughs, Arthur Kennedy was a fine sleazeball and the dames Brenda Marshall & Olympe Bradna were pretty and effective in their naive way. Definitely worth the hour.