Last night, in "Highway 13"(1948), the Norris Trucking Company is losing rigs at an alarming rate. They keep going over cliffs on the highway between Bishop and Mojave, six in the past month. As the movie got underway, I wondered if we'd seen it before, remembering a similar plot in which a criminal gang were running freight trucks off the road. It took about fifteen minutes for me to be sure this was a different film, when one of the drivers, a guy named "Hank Wilson" (Robert Lowery) goes to the management to tell them he thinks the accidents aren't accidental. "I drive that route, as you know, and every time I make a run, I stop at Pop's Cafe on Highway 13. You know the place?" Hank's fiance "Doris Lacy" (Pamela Blake) works there as a waitress. He explains to the Norris co-owner "Frank Denton" (Michael Whalen) that the joint has a gas station and garage attached. It's a pit stop for Norris drivers to have their trucks filled and oiled, and the guy who owns the cafe and garage is an old malcontent named "Pop Lacy" (Clem Bevans), Doris's uncle. Pop's always in a bad mood. "I've asked around about him," Hank tells Mr. Denton, "and it turns out Pop was head of a Chicago gang in the 1920's."
That alone isn't enough to pin an insurance-murder rap on Pop, though the effort smacks of organization aligning with gang ties, but Pop's pushing 80 now and is dyspeptic. He wouldn't seem to have the energy or clout necessary to pull off such a job or head up a racket. In fact, Hank's announcement of his suspicion backfires. When Mr. Denton informs the police about Pop, they confer with the insurance company detective (Lyle Talbot), who thinks Hank himself is the culprit. "Why is he snoopin' around, askin' so many questions?" Talbot and the police think he's trying to frame someone else, so they throw him in the hoosegow for a while. Then, a subordinate insurance investigator gets him out, believing someone else at the Norris Company is responsible. He has Hank deliberately proposition the hottie who runs the personnel department. "Mary Hadley" (Maris Wrixon) has been coming on to him since he started working there. "Takes her on a few dates. see if she knows anything," the investigator tells him. Hank does this, much to the chagrin of Doris, his loyal girl at the cafe, who thinks he's cheating. Meanwhile the insurance investigator is killed when - while inspecting a truck for mechanical defects - someone releases the emergency brake on another truck and he is squashed. Is there any chance that Doris Lacy, a nice girl, is involved?
An early victim in the truck crashes is Mr. Denton's wife, who by unfortunate coincidence was run off the road in the course of one of the "accidents." Denton wants to get to the bottom of it all, but doesn't believe Hank's theory about Pop.
"Highway 13" is a solid crime flick with a gripping plot, but the best thing about it is all the road and cafe footage, featuring old-time Bishop, Mojave and Ventura County roads and locations in the late 1940s, when nothing was out there except for the lone cafe and the occasional barn. Old Pop is a character, wilier than you think, but his wife "Aunt Mert" (Mary Gordon) has a handle on him, throwing pies at his head from behind the cafe counter. Day-for-night photography is used to get that "Road Noir" look. Another good one from Lippert Pictures, Two Bigs, a minor classic. The picture is very good. ////
The previous night's movie was "Insurance Investigator"(1951), a tight 60 Minuter. At the realty corporation of Sullivan and Hammond, co-owner Mr. Sullivan is closing up for the night. Finding the elevator out of order, he uses the stairs and gets clobbered on his way to the ground floor. His shadowy assailant then breaks into Sullivan's office, pours a large whiskey and leaves the drink on his desk, to make it look like he'd been late-night boozing, hard at work, and fell down the stairs on his way out. Sullivan has a 100,000 dollar double indemnity insurance policy - a lot of dough - so the agency automatically sends out insurance investigator "Tom Davison" (Richard Denning), to make sure nothing is fishy.
But right away there is. The elevator has been declared non-defective. "It could not possibly have failed to operate," says the inspector. Sullivan's daughter "Nancy" (Audrey Long) adds fuel to the fire. When questioned by Tom Davison, she says, "My Dad never drank that much, and never drank whiskey at all."
Right off the bat, Davison has a suspect, Sullivan's business partner "John Hammond" (John Eldrege), who not only was the beneficiary on Sullivan's life insurance policy but stood to gain sole ownership of the company. Davison asks Nancy Sullivan to help him go undercover, figuring he'll have a better chance of finding the truth if he doesn't identify himself as an insurance investigator. She gets him a job as a real estate agent, posing as a Southern gent from Atlanta, complete with Colonel Sanders accent. He cozies up to the firm's secretary "Addie Wilson" (Hillary Brooke) and learns that she and John Hammond are secretly an item. With this revelation, Hammond is no longer merely a suspect. Davison is certain he's behind the death of Nancy's Dad.
But then Davison finds a stack of cancelled (i.e.bounced) checks in Hammond's desk, made out to a local casino owner. As we know from our 60 Minute Westerns last year, "Casino Owner" is right next to "Mob Boss" as the ultimate bad guy (except for Trump), and it turns out that Hammond was heavily in debt to this guy, "Chuck Malone" (Reed Hadley of "Zorro" fame).
We then see Malone shaking Hammond down, saying, "Where's that twenty thousand you owe me?" When Hammond says he doesn't have it, "But I will, as soon as the insurance claim comes through," Malone says, "Well, in the mean time, get rid of this guy," meaning Tom Davison. They've started to suspect he's not who he claims to be. To kill him off, Hammond "fixes" the elevator again, this time so the door will open to a 20 story fall. But it's not Davison who opens it; it's Hammond's secret lover Addie Wilson, who falls to her death. Now Hammond is devastated. Not only was he in love with Addie; they were gonna take the insurance payoff from Mr. Sullivan's death, and take over the company. But now she's dead, too, and he's in dutch to the real brains behind the insurance scam, casino owner Chuck Malone, who's been forcing other indebted gamblers to take out life insurance policies, then having his henchmen kill them and make it look like accidents. They do this to one such rich kid by running him off the road one night after he leaves Malone's club drunk. Davison discovers that the kid had a Malone-enforced life insurance policy and now draws a bead on him as the real culprit, the bossman above John Hammond. This sets up the final showdown, with a car chase down Mulholland Drive. Two Big Thumbs Up, especially for showing how the onion skin layers peel away to reveal the true kingpin behind a scam. You can always count on Republic Pictures for a solid crime flicks as well as chapter serials. One slight complaint here: the print of this movie is colorized. Look, folks: don't colorize movies. It just looks like bleached-out real color, and it doesn't mix well with the intended grey scale of the actual black-and-white photography. We like black-and-white movies best anyway, not that real color isn't good, but we've talked about how B&W removes the "real life" aspect from a film, leaving only the cinematic mystery, so the imagery becomes pure style, and the use of grey scale is all important. So, please don't colorize movies. But still Two Bigs and a high recommendation. The picture is slightly soft. ////
That's all for tonight. My blogging music is "Not the Weapon but the Hand," the excellent collaboration album from Steve Hogarth and Richard Barbieri, and also Richard Sinclair's "Caravan of Dreams". My late night is Handel's Jeptha Oratorio. I wish you a Happy Summer Soltice (and an awesome Summer in general), and I send you Tons of Love, as always. xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo :):)
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