A crime thriller from 1950 about a group of professional thieves & the determined police force on their trail. These thieves, a core group of 3 men, are in lockstep in their M. O. when they hit a place to rob, as seen in the film's opening bank robbery which they pull off w/surefire precision but their collective Achilles' heel is their women. The boss's, played by Steve Cochran, woman is very lippy & when she gets on his bad side & tries to flee the coup, she gets gunned down by him sending her down a flight of stairs. The other partner in this criminal triumvirate, played by Robert Webber (he was one of the jurors in Twelve Angry Men, the advertising guy), has a Canadian moll who knows nothing of his common criminality but after he gets killed by the cops (in an excellently tense sequence), she is all about looking for that door to get out but after another nail biter of a chase, she too gets some lead for her trouble sending the film into its equally nerve fraying finale when the crooks find out the shot girl is in hospital & they try to devise a way for them to get to her not knowing the cops have staked out the location. Fans of movies like Heat or the derivative Den of Thieves (a shameless Heat clone) will see the unmistakable DNA of those later films in this exciting predecessor which rewards the viewer w/excellent performances across the board.
Review of Highway 301
