Highway 301 (1950)

(On Cable TV, December 2022) I’m not sure if I’m comfortable calling Highway 301 a film noir. Yes, sure, it’s from the right period and it deals with criminals and it’s got a few femme fatales as gun molls. But if you’re looking for the noir style, you won’t really find it in its flat execution modelled on police procedural dramas. You won’t necessarily find the spirit of noir in its plot and resolution either, as the film follows a gang of bank robbers who are not conflicted about their moral descent and are quite definitely punished by the end of the film. Where’s the corruption of the innocent, the bittersweet conclusion, and the fatalistic acknowledgement that the world can become aligned against an ordinary person? At most, you get the lesson that gangsters will be undone by their women, which is a staple of noir but not enough to overcome the film’s blandness. Writer-director Andrew L. Stone clearly courts the true-crime crowd here—by basing the story on the real-life Tri-State Gang, but most visibly introducing the film through three real politicians who talk down to the viewers as if right and wrong were new concepts. Highway 301 is watchable if you’re willing to be indulgent, but it’s going to be difficult to remember a few days later. As it turns out, style is important!