Thieves' Highway
Director: Jules Dassin
Year Released: 1949
Rating: 3.5
After returning from the service, Richard Conte's character finds his father, a truck driver, was both robbed and symbolically castrated by a food kingpin played by Lee J. Cobb so, with the help of a colleague, he seeks justice. This highly unique concept (hindered only slightly by some unlikely plot occurrences) is aided by Dassin's taut direction and compelling characters, not to mention two almost Hitchcockian females: the good-natured brunette/whore and the selfish blonde/virgin. The performances are fantastic all around, but Cobb in particular is a master at creating a character of loathsome malevolence.
