Matialth Good concept, poorly executed.

Freaktana A Major Disappointment

Taha Avalos The best films of this genre always show a path and provide a takeaway for being a better person.

Ginger Very good movie overall, highly recommended. Most of the negative reviews don't have any merit and are all pollitically based. Give this movie a chance at least, and it might give you a different perspective.

Joe Stemme THIEVES HIGHWAY (1949) - War themes are often cited as a key signifier of Film Noir. But, it can also be said that the Depression plays a major factor in infusing the genre with its sense of world weariness. Here, Director Jules Dassin and screenwriter A. I. Bezzerides (based on his novel) incorporate the immigrant experience into the mix. Soldier Nick Garcos (Richard Conte) returns from war to find his trucker father Yanko (Morris Carnovsky) broken down and unable to work due to a business deal gone tragic. Nick puts his plans to marry hometown sweetheart Polly (Barbara Lawrence) on hold to wreck vengeance. He enlists an old trucker buddy of his father, Ed (Millard Mitchell) to drive up to San Francisco to right those wrongs. Nick and Ed strike up an uneasy alliance to buy two truckloads of apples and sell them up north. There Nick meets up with Figlia (Lee J. Cobb) who he assumes masterminded his dad's demise. Nick hooks up with a too friendly prostitute Rica (Valentina Cortese) while Figlia double-deals the Garcos family once again. THIEVES HIGHWAY is a fairly standard revenge Noir plot. What sets it apart is the detail, subtext and emotion that Dassin and Beszzerides bring to the table. You feel as if you are in the fruit and vegetable market in 40s Frisco. The sights, the sounds, the smells. Greeks, Italians, Poles, Irish and other nationalities bumping up together to make a literal market of people. The love scenes with Nick and Rica are remarkably frank for the era (perhaps, too frank, as there are a couple of very noticeable cuts during their romantic clenches - were they considered perhaps too long for the censor's comfort?). The acting is fine all up and down the cast. The action is sometimes swift and brutal. But, Dassin still takes the time to set up certain indelible shots, particularly one of crates of apples tumbling down a hillside after a truck crash. It's one of the great images in all of Film Noir. THIEVES HIGHWAY is a cornerstone Noir.

edwagreen For a change, Richard Conte shows that he can be vulnerable as depicted in this film. Coming home to find his father confined to a wheelchair, as a result of a supposed accident, Conte goes after the guy who had a supposed part in the accident.Conte suffers a near broken neck and is severely beaten by the thugs of Mike Figlia, Lee J. Cobb, a sinister gangster in the film. Cobb reminds me of his part as the corrupt person in "On the Waterfront."Don't you think that Valentina Cortese looked too old for the part? Perhaps, the reason was due to the way her hair was cut in the film.It's basically a story of the apple industry and how like everything else, it can be manipulated by hoodlums.The ending comes rather quickly and it's just as well.

mark.waltz When happy-go-lucky war veteran Richard Conte comes home, he is upset to find out that his aging father has lost his legs as a result of a trucking accident he had while attempting to make a delivery to San Francisco. He decides to confront the big boss (Lee J. Cobb) and buys his own truck so with the help of his father's old partner (Millard Mitchell), he can go there on the pretense of delivering apples. Trucking requires a lot of energy to prevent the driver from falling asleep, and getting to San Francisco is half the battle. Two men (Joseph Pevney and Jack Oakie), double-crossed by Mitchell, stalk him, while up at the Embarcadero, Conte finds Cobb more than ready to challenge him. But Cobb underestimates him, especially when he tries to use an obvious street walker (Valentina Cortese) in his efforts to get Conte out of his hair.This is a realistic and gritty drama that doesn't leave any stone unturned in exposing the rackets involved in a tough occupation. There's enough violence here to expose the seemingly innocent businessmen for being the mobsters they really are, and how the little man always suffer under the hands of these crooks. Conte is excellent, with Cortese memorable as a femme fatal who has more up her sleeve than the man paying her off realizes. Some of the violence is very shocking, and there's a very brutal ending for one of the major characters, as well as a confrontation with a horrifying pay-off for a certain villain. Barbara Lawrence is memorable as Conte's fiancée, while future "Caged" matron Hope Emerson has a nice small role as one of Cobb's no-nonsense customers. Morris Carnovsky gives vulnerability to the part of Conte's handicapped father. Don't let the happy opening fool you. There's little to be happy about throughout 95 percent of the movie, yet something about the way it was written, directed and filmed shows a minor masterpiece that you might not put at the top of your list to watch over and over, but you'll certainly never forget it.

sol1218 **SPOILERS*** Hard hitting revenge flick with Richard Conte as the two fisted golden delicious apple importer Nick Garco who's home from the war after seeing action in Europe only to get himself involved in a war back home. Nick who seems to have trouble keeping his shirt on in the movie obviously in order for him to show off to the audience and his co-star San Francisco street walker Rica, Valntina Cortess, what a perfect physique he has. Filled with rage over what happened to his old man Yarko Garcos, Morris Carnovsky, Nick plans to take on double-dealing fruit & vegetable dealer Mike Figlia, Lee J. Cobb, who screwed Yarko out of his hard earned cash. That all happened in an underhanded tomato delivery deal that Yarko made to his fruit & vegetable storehouse in SF. Not only that the sleazy and conniving Figlia got Yarko good and drunk and put him behind the wheel of his delivery truck where he ends up driving off the road and losing his legs when the truck landed on him.Getting together with his dad's friend and partner in the fruit & vegetable business Ed Kinney, Millard Mitchell, Nick gets two truckload, him & Ed, of golden delicious apples that's worth their weight in gold from a secret apple orchard in Fresno and drives up north to SF in order to sell them at a very hefty profit. It's also in SF that Nick's finally gets to meet the two timing, in how he does business, Mike Figlia in order to pay him back for what he did to his old man and get the money, for the tomato shipment, that he robbed him out off.Smelling trouble, in how aggressive Nick comes on to him, Figlia gets local hooker Rica to soften him up, by bedding him down, while he and his henchmen try to steal his truckload of expensive golden delicious apples. This devious plan on Fghia's part is soon to backfire on him in Rica falling in love, by seeing just what a hunk of a man he is, with Nick and telling him what Figlia has planned for him!We still have Nick's partner in the fruit & vegetable business to worry about in him driving his truckload of golden delicious apples to the San Francisco market on his dilapidate jalopy of a truck that, as Ed says, he keeps from falling apart with spit! As you would have expected the truck ends up rolling off a cliff when it's brakes, that were held together with chewing gum, gave out thus killing Ed when the whole damn thing exploded on top him! Nick himself got worked over by two of Figlia's hoods who took the money, in both cash & check, that he made, by threatening to crack his skull, Figlia pay him for stealing his apples as well as what he did to his dad Yanko in the crooked tomato exchange deal he pulled on him.***SPOILERS*** The end of the movie couldn't have come soon enough with Nick now back and on top of his game, after recovering from the beating that Figlia's hoods gave him, confronting Figlia at a San Francisco watering hole and beating the living hell out of him while his boys just stand there without as much as lifting a finger to help him! With his mission now completed in both delivering the golden delicious apples to market and getting his and his dad's money back from the now beaten battered and arrested, by the SFPD for racketeering and extortion, Figlia Nick can finally go back home to Fresno and enjoy the "fruits" of his labor. Nick now together with his new found love Rica whom he traded his snotty and full of herself girlfriend Polly, Barbara Lawrence, for drives into the sunset with his truck to pick up a new shipment of golden delicious apples for his thousands of apple hungry costumers all over the state who just can't get enough of them.