Runtime: 94 minutes
Directed by: Jules Dassin
Starring: Richard Conte, Valentina Cortese, Lee J. Cobb, Millard Mitchell, Jack Oakie
From: 20th Century Fox
Undoubtedly the most intense and grittiest movie ever made about apples. I've known of this picture for awhile now and at least at this moment, it is otherwise difficult to track down so when TCM ran the film earlier in the month, it was DVR'ed and finally it was watched last night by me.
It is a film noir surrounding... the hauling of apples to an open market. It is actually a very good picture that has what you'd want from the genre. Richard Conte returns him from military service and at first the mood is happy-go-lucky. Then, he suddenly realizes that something pretty bad happened to his trucker dad at the hands of Lee J. Cobb; perhaps it's not a surprise that he was the lead heel. Conte is looking for answers so he teams up with one of his dad's pals and hauls up apples from an orchard to San Francisco. This is what I presume is a long-gone phenomenon where truckers independently transport a food product directly from the source to a huge market where it's anything goes and anyone can purchase the items in question as long as they can agree to a price. It was definitely fascinating to me.
It honestly shouldn't be a surprise that in a world where a profit is made, there are ruthless SOB's like Cobb's character who will do great harm (or worse) to someone to make a quick buck, or enact elaborate schemes where the truckers don't end up making any money at all. As you might imagine, it's a loud and frantic world filled with colorful, earthy characters.
One example is Jack Oakie playing someone only known as SLOB; that's harsh for someone who is on the portly side like Oakie was. There's also “lady of the night” Rica, played by Valentina Cortese-someone who I saw late last week in Day for Night. In both she delivered w/ her performance. Anyhow, bad things happen to our lead (how 'bout them apples?), Rica falls for him-despite Ol' Richard already having a girlfriend-and to steal a line from a mutual on Letterboxd, this literally was a movie which involved people stealing the fruits of your labor.
The director was Jules Dassin so I was hoping this movie would be a tasty treat, and least personally I thought that it was. It has some great scenes that I loved taking a bite out of...
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