calvinnme ... and he didn't even need much dialogue! This film is about the tri-state gang that robbed banks in North Carolina, Virginia, and Maryland. The title comes from the actual Highway 301, which was a byway for the gang which actually operated in the 1930's not the 40's when this film was made.The beginning is basically like a "Crime Does Not Pay" short from MGM, in which leading officials of the three states involved talk about the gang. The voice over continues through parts of the film.Cochran plays the head of the gang, George Legenza, and seems to enjoy just BEING a criminal as much as or more than the money it brings him. He shoots his common law wife dead after she gets boozed up and starts mouthing off. He does so without breaking a sweat, without a change of expression, and just walks away, not even interested in the elevator operator who sees the whole thing, just assuming that given what he has just seen he will keep his trap shut. He does.One gang member, Bill Philips, brings a wife back home from Canada (Gaby Andre as Lee) after he has had a short vacation, and she is basically innocent of the entire enterprise. She thought her husband and his associates were salesmen, but soon learns the truth but is basically trapped into going along with them. Bill promises nothing will happen to her while he is around, but then he is NOT around after a robbery goes wrong and he is killed.Lee tries to make her escape but Legenza tracks her down on the dark streets and shoots her in a prolonged and tension filled scene. She lives, though, and now Legenza has to come up with a way to finish the job in a hospital filled with policemen guarding her. How will this all work out? Watch and find out.I remember this film when I was in fifth grade, home sick from school, and didn't even know its name until it showed up on Turner Classic Movies decades later. I did remember Lee walking down the dark streets after she learns her husband is dead with the voice over saying "Bill said you were safe while he was around, but now he is not around anymore. What will happen to you now?". I always thought this was hitting the poor girl over the head for basically being a victim of circumstance.Legenza may have been the leader, but some of the other gang members, given their actual names here, did things that were pretty brazen too. For example, Wally Castle is sixth billed here as Robert Mais. Mais actually was in jail in Richmond, sentenced to death, and in spite of the fact he was a known long time habitual criminal with habitual criminals as friends, was allowed to receive those criminal friends as visitors! One of them slipped him a pistol, and he and Legenza escaped after a shootout that left one guard dead. Later a deputy committed suicide over his feelings of guilt in allowing the convicted murderers to escape. You won't see any of THAT in THIS film, because it is the production code era and makes law enforcement look a wee bit incompetent.Still it is a tense and action packed B noir. Recommended.

Spikeopath Highway 301 is written and directed by Andrew L. Stone. It stars Steve Cochran, Virginia Grey, Gaby André and Edmond Ryan. Music is by William Lava and photography by Carl Guthrie. Story is based on a real gang of robbers known as The Tri-State Gang, who terrorised and thieved in North Carolina, Virginia and Maryland. Plot chronicles their activities and the pursuit of them by the authorities. It opens with a trio of state governors cringe worthily pumping up the hard sell, for what we know is going to be a "crime doesn't not pay" message movie. I half expected the Star Spangled Banner to come booming out the speakers and an FBI version of Uncle Sam to flash on the screen telling us to come join the Crime Stoppers! Thankfully, once the cringe stops the film kicks in with a ruthless bank robbery and never looks back from that moment. Led by cold blooded George Legenza (Cochran), this gang don't wear masks, they are ruthless but not beyond error, and tagging along are molls who are either oblivious to the gang's activities - fully complicit - or ignorant. It's a pressure cooker dynamic and as we soon find out, women are not going to be treated well here at all, if they are in the way or a threat to safety, they will cop it. Highway 301 is a violent film with some cold characterisations, and there may even be a subtle homosexual relationship between two of the gang members. Andrew Stone's direction is tight and in tune with the jagged edges of his characters, with barely a filler shot used in the whole running time, while his scene structure for dramatic impacts work very well. Refreshingly there are no cheat cut-aways either. His cast are on form, with Cochran looming large with an intense and thoroughly dislikable portrayal leading the way, while Guthrie photographs with shadows prominent and a couple of night time street scenes that are visually noirish. Unfortunately Stone's screenplay hasn't the time to put depth into the principal players, the gang are bad and greedy, the women scratching around for purpose or brains, but that's all we know. It's the one flaw in an otherwise great crime movie. 8/10

jadedalex I will always have fond memories of Steve Cochran's portrayal of the scheming but doomed "Big Ed" in Raoul Walsh's classic "White Heat".Cochran gets to play the brutal lead gangster in "Highway 301". I wonder how much Cochran absorbed watching Cagney play the criminally insane "Cody Jarrett". Cochrane has a brutally handsome sinister face, but not much else. To be fair to Cochran, the script is hardly of the caliber of "White Heat". Steve is one mean son of a gun here -- he seems to get a real kick out of murdering women and bank guards. But whereas Cagney's performance in "White Heat" is a fleshed-out fully alive personality, Cochran's Legenza is a cardboard villain whose sadism is never explained.There are some good moments. Director Stone crafts a scene that is worthy of Hitchcock (and no doubt inspired by the Master) when Gaby Andre's character uses a piece of paper and a hairpin to unwedge a key, drop it onto the paper and slide it over to her side of the door. It doesn't sound like much on paper -- but the editing is well done and the scene becomes that overused term "Hitchcockian".Cochran's death is fairly hideous, a brutal affair involving a freight train, but the scene only reminds me of how great Cagney was on "top of the world'.If you can get past the slow opening with three fine governors from the states bordering "Highway 301" (this film is supposedly based on a true story) pontificating about what a wonderful film you are about to see, you are in for a rough brutal ride.Actually, thinking of Cochran, he was fairly effective as "Big Ed" in "White Heat". Even though we have seen his character in a love affair with Cody's wife Verna, there is still a curious admiration for this young gangster when he declares to Verna that he must take a stand against Cody Jarrett. As I said, had the script been better, Cochran could have done something more interesting on "Highway 301".

melvelvit-1 HIGHWAY 301 is a rip-roaring Warner Brothers return to their hard-hitting early 1930s gangster cycle complete with a "Crime Does Not Pay" prologue delivered by the governors of the three states the events take place in. Filmed in a semi-documentary style with sporadic voice-over narration, the tale is based on "cold, hard fact" and is surprisingly sadistic -which could be the reason why I never saw it on TV growing up. Like many good crime melodramas, H301 opens with a bank robbery and follows the gang and their molls as they live life on the run and I was reminded of 1967's BONNIE & CLYDE in its depiction of a "family" of outlaws contending with pressures from within as they're relentlessly pursued by the long arm of the law. The brutally handsome Steve Cochran dominates his surroundings as the flint-eyed, heartless, "take-no-prisoners" leader of the "Tri-State Gang" who can calmly kill at the drop of a fedora and Robert Webber and newcomer Gaby Andre (whatever happened to her?) are believable as a young con and his naive bride in over their heads. Familiar face Virginia Grey scores as a radio-addicted dame who knows the score and the reliable Eddie Norris and Richard Egan are also on hand in small roles. The director, Andrew Stone, wrote the never-a-dull-moment script and, in addition to the solid direction and "A" production values only a major studio can provide, the violence directed at women and the high body count made this fast-paced police procedural a slick "shocker" for its day and it still packs a punch. Warners also made WHITE HEAT, KISS TOMORROW GOODBYE (both with James Cagney), and THE DAMNED DON'T CRY (again with bad boy Cochran) around the same time. Highly recommended for fans of this type of film -and you know who you are."Several good suspense sequences, some good comic observation, and many pleasing visual moments of the wet-streets-at-night category." -"Punch"