Highway West (1941) User Reviews

Gem of a Classic from 1941

[whpratt1 · 6/10 · 20 April 2008]

Brenda Marshall, (Claire Foster) is a young gal who meets up with a guy named George Foster, (Arthur Kennedy) and they only know each other for a very short time and they get married. George is always bringing home lots of money and buying all sorts of things for Claire and wants her to quite her job and go West with him. George is really a bank robber who has stolen a great deal of money and shoots a bank teller during the robbery and there is a man hunt out for him on all police bulletins in California. It is at this point in the film where it gets very interesting and you wonder just how this story will turn out. A very young looking Arthur Kennedy gave an outstanding performance along with some great veteran actors. Enjoy.

Clichéd but entertaining

[doug-697 · 7/10 · 18 April 2008]

A young woman marries a man unaware he's a robber and cold killer. When she discovers the truth she leaves him just as he's sent to prison for life. She starts a new life with her younger sister running a rural motel. After three years he escapes from prison and tries to get back into her life. She discovers he's still a killer and this is when the main drama in the movie begins.

Before television the Hollywood factory was churning out many movies to meet the heavy demand. They weren't always great, but they were rarely bad. This is one of those movies that isn't bad. It's entertaining and moves quickly. Brenda Marshall, who married William Holden sometime around making this movie, and Olympe Branda, a former french dancer whose accent is still evident, play the sisters convincingly and are nice to look at. Unfortunately, it's heavily clichéd, especially the racist depiction of the black gas station attendant. But also the love interest for the woman, whom she can't marry because she's still married to the killer, is so goody-goody and just a cardboard cutout, that he's the weakest character in the movie.

However the movie held my interest throughout.

Tidy little film

[Bucs1960 · 6/10 · 18 April 2008]

This film is one of those double feature items prevalent in the 1940s. Doesn't make you think too much, holds your attention and ties up all the loose ends before the end titles.

Brenda Marshall marries Arthur Kennedy although she doesn't know him very well. Obviously not well at all, since he is a bank robber and a cold-blooded killer while she thinks he is an oil man!! Things go from bad to worse and he is captured and sent to prison. Fast forward three years and Arthur escaped from prison and guess what??....he comes looking for his wife who now runs a gas station/motor court with her sister, played rather badly by Olympe Bradna and her grandpa played rather well by Slim Summerville(what a great character he was). There are the usual chases, shoot-outs and mayhem until the denouement in the parking lot. All ends well. Brenda ends up with William Lundigan the forest ranger, Ms. Bradna gets to go off to college and Gramps is the hero of the day. Roll title..The end.

Lightning did not strike twice in the case of this programmer.

[mark.waltz · 3/10 · 2 November 2018]

It has been years since I saw "Heat Lightning", the 1934 crime drama with Aline MacMahon, Ann Dvorak and Preston Foster, but what I remembered about it is its firecracker pacing, the extremely unique leading lady (MacMahon) and that Warner Brothers pizzazz that had somehow all but vanished by the early 1940's. By this time, Warners was remaking many of their classics, and in spite of some truly great stars in their "A" films (Davis, Bogart, Cagney, DeHavilland), their "B" unit was strictly formula, and their remakes were pale imitations of the original source. The screenwriting credit for "Highway West" indicates "Based upon a play by...", the original play entitled "Heat Lightning". The people writing the credits couldn't even bring themselves to credit the original source, possibly afraid of older audiences remembering the original version and realizing that they were heading down a road that unfortunately at the conclusion, quality wise, was a true dead end.

While attractive, Brenda Marshall doesn't have the same sparkle that MacMahon had. In "Heat Lightning", you could see the world weariness on MacMahon's face, yet a strong character behind those tired eyes. Marshall is newly married to Arthur Kennedy (giving the film's best performance), and somehow ends up on the run with him while they are heading west, chased by the police and involved in a shoot-out. Managing to get away from him, Marshall settles down and opens a roadside coffee shop, but out of the blue, Kennedy shows up. When Marshall reveals she wants to have nothing to do with him, Kennedy turns to her younger sister (Olympe Bradna) who had never met him before or knew anything about him. It's up to Marshall to protect her sister from her thug ex-husband, even if it means running away with Kennedy and hurting her sister to prevent this from happening. Other than the early chase sequence in the beginning, this is mostly talk and little action, with Slim Summerville and Willie Best providing some awkward comic relief amongst the sister's drama. The colorful poster promises something that is sadly never delivered here, which is perhaps why Marshall never made it past second string leading lady and why Kennedy went into character parts where he made a real killing.

Thumbs down.

[valstone52 · 2/10 · 27 February 2020]

Poor so called remake of heat lightning. They should have picked someone else to play Myra the sister. Her accent is too heavy and you can't say that it's a boarding school accent.

Arthur Kennedy is good. That is all.

[thompsonm-05031 · 4/10 · 21 October 2019]

I dislike crime dramas that feel the need to interrupt the action every 2 minutes with some stupid "comic relief". I dislike it intensely. This movie went back and forth between gun battle and Looney tunes cartoon action for the last 15 minutes of the movie and in so doing, destroyed any suspense that they might have built up. Sad. It's just bad movie making.

Heat Lightning II

[JohnSeal · 5/10 · 13 May 2008]

This unnecessary remake of Heat Lightning (1934) is inferior to its predecessor in every respect, but is still worth a look. Arthur Kennedy is excellent as bank robber George Foster, whose wife Claire (Brenda Marshall) has started a new life for herself running a remote motor hotel whilst hubby serves time in the Big House. When George escapes and seeks refuge at her establishment, Claire is none too happy--especially when her younger sister Myra (Olympe Bradna) falls under George's spell. Bradna is terrible and any picture featuring Willie Best as a scared servant is badly handicapped, but the film moves along at a decent pace, William Lundigan is good as hero fish and game man Dave, and Slim Summerville offers decent comic support. Well shot by Ted McCord, Highway West is an entertaining second feature. Just don't watch it right after you've watched Heat Lightning.