Good start, but then it gets ruined

Excellent, a Must See

The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

Amazing worth wacthing. So good. Biased but well made with many good points.

'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.

An obviously drunken floozy (Mary Beth Hughes) is p.o.'d when drifter Richard Conte sits down next to her and responds to her model picture on the wall with a "used to be beautiful" response, tearing up on him like Muhammed Ali on Joe Frazier. He silences her with a kiss, and the next thing you know, he's being booked for her murder! Escaping from the police, he hooks up a ride with matronly Joan Bennett and her assistant Wanda Hendrix after helping them with their car, and before you know it, they are all avoiding the police, as it turns out Bennett knew the victim too, obviously not with much affection....This is an enjoyable film noir with some implausibilities, but that does not stop it from being fun. You can't forget Hughes in her brief bit at the beginning, obviously suffering from one too many (and that includes men), and sadly, she is gone far too fast. I would have liked some flashbacks of her earlier story, especially once it came known that she had encounters with the women Conte ends up with. He is always a great anti-hero in films like this, someone you like but still don't fully trust. Bennett is still gorgeous with that smooth martini voice and the memory of her in early film noir like "Woman in the Window" is not forgotten. Her seemingly secure lady here has more than meets the eye to her. It's obvious that the romance is meant between Conte and Hendrix, but there's fire in Joan that hasn't quite sizzled as the years have gone by.There's a fun cameo by "tough gal" Iris Adrian as a waitress who has had enough (tossing a menu at Conte's table as if she was a card dealer in Las Vegas) plus mostly gritty outdoor photography that keeps this a "day noir" as opposed to most of them which were "night noir". Passionate animal lovers beware, however, that there is a scene with a small dog that they may find disturbing. All in all, however, this isn't bad considering this was late in the film noir genre and that it was made by Allied Artists, the studio that took over Monogram just a few years before.

"Highway Dragnet" is a frustrating film. The actors do a pretty good job and the look of the film is quite nice. It's too bad, then, that the writing was so lousy. In fact, the film is filled with so many logical holes that it resembles cheese! Richard Conte plays a Korean War vet who has just returned home. He's decided to visit Las Vegas and ends up getting into a ton of trouble. That's because after having a loud altercation with a dame in a bar, she ends up dead and all the facts seem to point towards him. So what does he do? Yup, crime film cliché #5--he slugs the cops and disappears!! And, when he hitches a ride out of town, surprise of surprises, one of the ladies driving this car eventually ends up being the real murderer!!! What are the odds?! And, to make it worse, at the end of the film, this murderous woman shoots a detective at point blank range with a .45--and the guy is only SLIGHTLY wounded!!! He SHOULD have had a hole in him large enough to drive through, but miraculously he survives AND hears her make a confession to the original murder!!!! How convenient! Can any of this really happen in the real world? No way! But in this bizarre film, time and again, the impossible seems to occur--making it a very sloppily written movie. It's a shame, as Conte did a good job and he was a fine actor who was simply better than the material they gave him. You can do better than this with your viewing time.

This is a very unusual and low-budget B/W adventure from producer Roger Corman, directed by skillful Nathan Juran; one whose creators do a neat variation on the old tale of people kidnapped by a fugitive heading to somewhere and needing their vehicle or themselves as hostages. I find the storyline is straightforward and classic noir. Scene:  a casino in Las Vegas, a marine just back from service Marine (Richard Conte), buys a drink for platinum blonde (Mary Beth Hughes), and somehow insults her; so they have a public quarrel but then reconcile the problem.  The following  day, he is taken in by the sheriff an named the prime suspect in the girl's demise; she has been strangled. Using his military skills, he overpowers the officers holding him and sets out on the "lam". Troopers are checking the highways for him, hence the title, and also the state border; So he helps and hitches a ride with with a two women who have had car trouble. One is wealthy fashion photographer from New York, Joan Bennett; her young assistant, Wanda Hendrix, is the other. After a while the two try to rid themselves of him, but he stays with them--finally having to use force to have his way. He heads for the town where he grew up, for a climax, finding it under the waters of the Salton Sea. The film ends happily for Conte, but not before Bennett's dog has been killed, and he has been doubted severely and tested to the limit.  The film is inexpensive-looking and has indifferent dialogue by  but the story line is good, clean and memorable. Roger Corman devised the original story; four others had hands in the screenplay. There is original music by Edward Kay and some decent but hardly outstanding technical work. In the cast along with the principals are stalwart Reed Hadley, Frank Jenks, Iris Adrian, Harry Harvey,Tom Hubbard (one of the writers) and others all showing to advantage. I first saw this film nearly fifty years ago; and it is still memorable and satisfying; with more money and better dialogue, I believe these actors and the director could have made a fine narrative even better.