Highway Dragnet is a 1954

1954 in film

The year 1954 in film involved some significant events and memorable ones.-Events:*May 12 - The Marx Brothers' Zeppo Marx divorces wife Marion Benda...

 crime drama film directed by Nathan Juran

Nathan Juran

Naftuli "Nathan" Hertz Juran was an American film art director and film director who is most noted for winning the Academy Award for Best Art Direction for How Green Was My Valley and for directing science fiction and fantasy films such as Attack of the 50 Foot Woman. He was also the brother of...

, based on story by U.S. Anderson and Roger Corman

Roger Corman

Roger William Corman is an American film producer, director and actor. He has mostly worked on low-budget B movies. Some of Corman's work has an established critical reputation, such as his cycle of films adapted from the tales of Edgar Allan Poe, and in 2009 he won an Honorary Academy Award for...

. The film stars Richard Conte

Richard Conte

Richard Conte was an American actor. He appeared in numerous films from the 1940s through 1970s, including I'll Cry Tomorrow and The Godfather.-Life and career:...

, Joan Bennett

Joan Bennett

Joan Geraldine Bennett was an American stage, film and television actress. Besides acting on the stage, Bennett appeared in more than 70 motion pictures from the era of silent movies well into the sound era...

 and Wanda Hendrix

Wanda Hendrix

Wanda Hendrix was an American film and television actress.Born Dixie Wanda Hendrix in Jacksonville, Florida, Hendrix was performing in her local amateur theater when she was seen by a talent agent who signed her to a Hollywood contract...

. It tells the story of a former Korean War-era Marine, who hitches a ride with a female fashion photographer and her young assistant to escape from the Las Vegas police on a murder charge. Although most of the action takes place in California, for an unexplained reason the police are all portrayde as being from Las Vegas.

Production

Roger Corman

Roger Corman

Roger William Corman is an American film producer, director and actor. He has mostly worked on low-budget B movies. Some of Corman's work has an established critical reputation, such as his cycle of films adapted from the tales of Edgar Allan Poe, and in 2009 he won an Honorary Academy Award for...

 sold his first screen story called The House by the Sea to Allied Artists for $3,000. Allied Artists changed the title to the more commercial exploitation

Exploitation film

Exploitation film is a type of film that is promoted by "exploiting" often lurid subject matter. The term "exploitation" is common in film marketing, used for all types of films to mean promotion or advertising. These films then need something to exploit, such as a big star, special effects, sex,...

 Highway Dragnet after the success of the television series Dragnet

Dragnet (series)

Dragnet is a radio and television crime drama about the cases of a dedicated Los Angeles police detective, Sergeant Joe Friday, and his partners...

and Highway Patrol

Highway Patrol (TV series)

Highway Patrol is a syndicated action crime drama series produced 1955-1959.-Overview:Highway Patrol stars Broderick Crawford as Dan Mathews, the gruff and dedicated head of a police force in an unidentified Western state...

.

Main cast

• Richard Conte as Marine Sgt. James Henry
• Joan Bennett as Mrs. Cummings
• Wanda Hendrix as Susan Willis
• Reed Hadley
  Reed Hadley
  Reed Hadley was an American movie, television and radio actor.Reed Hadley was born Reed Herring in Petrolia in Clay County near Wichita Falls, Texas, to Bert Herring, an oil well driller, and his wife Minnie. Hadley had one sister, Bess Brenner. He was reared in Buffalo, New York...
  
   as Det. Lt. Joe White Eagle
• Mary Beth Hughes
  Mary Beth Hughes
  Mary Beth Hughes was an American film, television, and stage actress best known for her roles in B movies.-Early life and career:...
  
   as Terri Smith
• Iris Adrian
  Iris Adrian
  Iris Adrian was an American film actress.-Life and career:Born in Los Angeles, California as Iris Hostetter, Adrian won a beauty pageant and worked with the Ziegfeld Follies, before she entered films at the end of the silent era in Chasing Husbands and appeared as an extra or chorus girl in early...
  
  as Sally