Some days…it just doesn’t pay to be a Good Samaritan. Truck driver Joe Harper (Jim Davis) learns this fairly quickly; he stops his run to help a motorist (David Bruce) whose auto is stuck in a ditch…and winds up being drygulched by the driver’s confederates. You see, it was all a set-up; the driver and his goons are members of a hijacking racket preying on trucks filled with bodacious booty. How do I know this? Well, an unseen narrator explains after the opening credits of Hi-Jacked (1950) that these scofflaws are responsible for why the food we eat, the liquor we drink, the clothes we buy, etc. is so friggin’ expensive—crime does not pay so much as it costs. (What’s worse, Narrator Guy kind of intimates it’s our fault.)
Jim Davis is a great example of one of those actors who got
better with time. Most people remember
him from the TV series Dallas, as John Ross “Jock” Ewing,
Sr., the family patriarch, and he also appeared on the western anthology Stories
of the Century (1954-55) and the adventure series Rescue 8 (1958-60). Davis could be stiff and wooden at
times—which is why he made a lot of B-pictures, particularly those of the
Western variety—but he gradually became a solid character veteran, as witnessed
by his turn as the doomed Senator George Hammond in one of my absolute favorite
movies, The
Parallax View (1974).
Davis has a Ben Johnson-like quality to him (Johnson is
another thespian who I always enjoy watching despite his acting limitations),
and his appearance here in Hi-Jacked makes this run-of-the-mill programmer
worth a look-see. It’s a product from
the Robert L. Lippert stable, which means you’re going to see a plethora of
familiar faces like Marcia Mae Jones (billed here as “Marsha Jones”; she plays
Davis’ wife) and Margia Dean (a waitress).
Of course, it wouldn’t be a Lippert film without the studio’s “good luck
charm,” the incomparable Sid Melton. (I
can understand why you’re groaning, folks.)
Melton plays one of the hijack gang members, a dweeb named
“Gerard” (an Arnold Stang influence, no doubt) who prefers to be addressed by
his nickname, “Killer.” He’s anything
but—and there’s an amusing running gag where he keeps pestering the hijack
leader (Bruce) to let him have a gun. I
think Sid was hysterical on Green Acres (his shtick on The
Danny Thomas Show got stale quickly in those “lost” episodes they
showed on Cozi TV a while back) and when a Lippert film is in danger of talking
itself to death, his antics can be a respite.
But when the movie is actually entertaining, Melton is little more than
a handicap. What’s more, Hi-Jacked also features TDOY fave Iris Adrian as Davis’ sassy
waitress friend, and there’s really not room enough for two people providing
comic relief in this one. (I really
liked Adrian’s character a lot. I’d
watch her in a TV series any day of the week.)
I’m a big fan of Marcia Mae (you’ll learn the reason why if
you read my write-up on Arson,
Inc.) but she doesn’t get much to do here; she and Jim have been
estranged since he was sent up, but once she learns of the effort he’s making
to stay on the straight-and-narrow she reconciles with him, which I found
sweet. (The two of them swap some spit
at the end of Hi-Jacked in a most
satisfying wrap-up, too.) Scripted by
Orville H. Hampton and Fred Myton (from a story by Myton and Raymond L.
Schrock), Hi-Jacked has the distinctive stamp of Sam Newfield (director) and
Sigmund Neufeld (producer)—the brothers put a little more effort into this one,
with some first-rate action in the form of exciting fist fights and an equally
swell climax.
Most of the Kit Parker Films versions of these Lippert
vehicles come from sparkly prints but Hi-Jacked
seems to have been through the projector sprockets a few too many times. That pin prick of a nitpick aside, I really
enjoyed Hi-Jacked: it doesn’t
inspire to anything beyond a simple time passer, and it succeeds admirably.
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