Highway Dragnet

If you can get past one remarkable coincidence at the heart of the plot — an accused killer and the actual killer randomly wind up on a road trip together — then Nathan Juran’s Highway Dragnet is a solid noir that sustains tension in the heat of the desert surrounding Las Vegas. Just back from the Korean War and visiting an old pal in Vegas, Jim Henry (Richard Conte) stops in a local bar and becomes romantically acquainted with a bitter former model (Mary Beth Hughes); when she’s found murdered the next morning, Henry’s arrested by Lt. Joe White Eagle (Reed Hadley) but soon escapes custody and, after strategically repairing their broken-down car, snags a lift with renowned fashion photographer H.G. Cummings (Joan Bennett) and her model-assistant Susan Willis (Wanda Hendrix), who are heading to a photo shoot at a Western resort. As word of the Vegas murder and the resulting police manhunt spread across the region, the ladies become suspicious of Henry’s potential involvement, slightly tempered by Susan’s attraction to him. Through a series of revelations (extramarital affairs, suicides, a missing dog leash), we learn that not only is everyone in the car a possible suspect but that they each have cause to eliminate the others. Co-produced by the very hit-or-miss Roger Corman, Highway Dragnet is no masterpiece but it’s a perfectly entertaining yarn with solid enough performances except perhaps that of Bennett, who comes across as a bored marionette in her final scene “trapped” in quicksand. Director Juran extracts several truly suspenseful moments from the script, especially an outdoor nighttime scene in which a figure emerges silently from behind a character who will escape strangulation by a matter of inches.