This poster and the one at bottom were made for the Jules Dassin directed crime drama Thieves’ Highway, starring Richard Conte, Lee J. Cobb, and Valentina Cortese. It had a special premiere in Los Angeles in September 1949, and went into nationwide release today the same year. It was based on the unpublished novel The Red of My Blood by A. I. Bezzerides, who saw the book optioned by Twentieth Century Fox and was asked to instead make a screenplay of it. Bezzerides also wrote the screenplays for Kiss Me Deadly, On Dangerous Ground, and They Drive by Night. The last of those was based on his (published this time) novel of the same name, a tale with a similar setting as Thieves’ Highway.
What is that setting? Thieves’ Highway explores the world of trucking and goods transport. In the story, Conte returns from working at sea to find that his father has lost his legs in a truck accident arranged by crooked San Francisco produce marketer Cobb in order to steal a payment. Conte decides that wrongs must be righted, and sets up an apple hauling deal meant to get him close to Cobb. He goes through hell to get that fruit to market, and once he arrives, well, balancing the cosmic scales in vintage dramas doesn’t usually work out as cleanly as its planners hope.
Conte is morally disadvantaged from the beginning. He has senses of honor and fair play, which don’t bode well for him in the cutthroat realm into which he’s descended. Because he’s an everyman, at its core Thieves’ Highway is more than a crime drama—it’s a broad but subtle capitalism critique. Its subtext suggests that hypercompetitiveness ultimately ends badly for everyone involved. When the rules are made by predators at the top, most people are simply consumed, while the closer others get to a seat at the banquet table the more of their humanity they lose.
Thieves’ Highway covers other themes too. Valentina Cortese embodies the fallen woman archetype. With her meager circumstances and Milanese accent, her character hints at the struggles of immigrants in new lands, and of impoverished women everywhere. She’s reduced to hustling men and doing paid favors for Cobb. In fact, it’s a favor for Cobb that brings her into contact with Conte. He’s just another mark to her at first, if one with a cute cleft chin, but when the two throw together she learns that life need not be lived transactionally. With its interesting similarities to Le salaire de la peur, On the Waterfront, and They Drive By Night, and anchored by a frankly brilliant Cortese, Thieves’ Highway is worth a careful watch and a post-screening think.
