Highway Dragnet

Highway Dragnet (1954)

SHOCK AFTER SHOCK... in manhunt for Las Vegas thrill-killer!

Ex-Marine Jim Henry, on the lam from a murder charge, hitches a ride with a glamour-magazine photographer, who is journeying cross-country with her principal model. Tensions rise, however, when the women realize their traveling companion may be a killer.

Date of release
1954-01-20
TMDB
5.7 / 10 (33)
Runtime
1h 10m
Genres
Crime, Drama, Thriller
Director
Nathan Juran

Casting

Interesting facts

  • Filmed in: California

Highway Dragnet is a 1954 American film noir directed by Nathan Juran from a story by U.S. Andersen and Roger Corman. The film stars Richard Conte, Joan Bennett and Wanda Hendrix. It was Roger Corman's first feature film credit. Corman also worked as an associate producer.

Production

Corman said the story was based on a trip he had taken to the Salton Sea. "The Salton Sea is overflowing its banks in the desert, and I saw all these old houses that were deserted," he said. "The first floors were flooded, and I thought it would be a great climax to a picture — some sort of chase across the desert and a shoot-out in the flooded house. So, I started with the climax of the film and worked back to create my story."

While working at the Dick Hyland Agency, Roger Corman sold his first screen story called The House in the Sea to Allied Artists for $3,500. Allied Artists changed the title to the more commercial exploitative title, Highway Dragnet, after the success of the television series Dragnet.

Quitting his job, and joining the production as an unpaid worker, Corman ended up getting credits as a screenwriter and associate producer. Portions of the film were shot in the Coachella Valley, California.

Read on Wikipedia · Text from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. Data from Wikidata.

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