Hi-Jacked (1950) User Reviews

"I Need To Stay Free To Clear Myself"

[bkoganbing · 5/10 · 23 May 2011]

Jim Davis later patriarch of the Ewing family of Dallas stars as a paroled ex-convict who is working as a truck driver. He gets himself hi-jacked a couple of times and his job and the authorities start suspecting him of being an inside man. The guy who's really doing the tipping decides with the fence for the stolen merchandise to sweeten the suspicious pot by planting evidence to incriminate him. Though carrying a weapon is an automatic trip back to the joint, as Davis points out, he has to stay free to clear himself. Especially after the evidence implicates his completely innocent wife Marcia Mae Jones and she's arrested when the police miss him.

The film reminds of a much superior noir classic Kansas City Confidential where John Payne finds himself in a similar jackpot. Not that this is a bad film, but its from the poverty row Lippert Pictures studio and has the shallow production values of its origins.

Davis does well as a guy looking to take care of business and the crooks who have done him wrong. The gang is headed by fence Paul Cavanaugh who advises and doesn't control. The muscle is done by David Bruce and he has a rough bunch with him including a wannabe in Sid Melton. Melton was in a whole lot of Lippert productions providing much needed comedy relief. And Iris Adrian as a wisecracking waitress is also in the cast and every film that she graces is that much better for her presence.

Hi-Jacked is a good product, very good considering the cheapness of its origins.

Hi-Jacked

[CinemaSerf · 5/10 · 7 June 2023]

"Joe" (Jim Davis) is a trucker who falls foul of hijackers for a second time, arousing the suspicions of the police who discover that he has a record. Things only get more complicated when he is discovered transporting contraband. "Joe" quickly realises that he is being set up, but can he find out by whom before the cops conclude that he belongs back behind bars? It's quite a well paced little action thriller, this, that is just sadly let down by some really mediocre acting and loads too much dialogue. The usually reliable Paul Cavanagh isn't given enough to do and the really unremarkable Marcia Mae Jones ("Jean") way too much as we head to a predictable, but quite exciting, conclusion. Sam Newfield does a competent job directing this tale of roadway piracy that has a message for all potential customers about the extent of this real crime on America's roads in the 1940s!

Awfully good for a Lippert Production.

[planktonrules · 6/10 · 1 August 2023]

"Hi-Jacked" is a cheap B-movie from Lippert Productions. Despite its low cost to make, it's actually a pretty dandy film.

Joe Harper (Jim Davis) is on parole and found a job as a truck driver. One day, his truck is hijacked and his load is stolen. Despite this, his boss says he has faith in Joe and keeps him on with the company. However, while this sounds nice, the plan is actually to use Joe as a scapegoat an they deliberately target him again for a hijacking! Joe is now fired and is unable to find work...so he decides to investigate on his own. And, he figures rightly...that it's an inside job.

The weird thing about this movie is that the very diminutive burlesque comic, Sid Melton, plays a crook named 'Killer'! Talk about playing against type...and you may remember him as Alf Monroe from "Green Acres"...as well as Jim Davis from "Dallas".

Despite the cheap look to the film, it's actually pretty good. Davis is particularly good and the action sequences are pretty convincing. Worth seeing if you like well made Bs.

Average Little Programmer

[dougdoepke · 30 November 2011]

An ex-con trucker works to clear himself from involvement with a gang of hi-jackers.

Can't expect much from a cheapo Lippert production, but this little programmer manages some interest. Davis does well as an ex-con truck driver. His skinny, towering frame and bushy hair have a different look from the usual Hollywood lead. The movie also benefits from highway filming along a major route into LA. Then too, I expect there's some insight into hi-jacking operations of the time since that angle appears pretty realistic.

But why-oh-why does Lippert insist on putting pint-sized Sid Melton in so many of their productions. Here, his silly phony tough guy does nothing but detract from what's otherwise a sober crime drama. Not so, the one-and-only Iris Adrian as a hash house waitress. Too bad Lippert didn't realize she furnishes enough expert comedy relief without the clumsy Melton. Also, look for Paul Cavanaugh (Hagen) whose polished bad guys graced many superior productions of the 30's and 40's.

Nothing special here. Just one of those minor programmers that would soon get absorbed into half-hour TV, in this case, into Highway Patrol (1955-1959).

Keep on truckin' down the highway of destiny.

[mark.waltz · 4/10 · 18 July 2016]

Jim Davis of "Dallas" fame had a lengthy film career in B films before he got a huge break during the last years of his life being cast as patriarch Jock Ewing. Here, he's the star of a low budget Lippert film noir where he's accused of being a part of a hi-jacking ring and ends up going his own way to figure out how he was framed. It's a typical movie tough guy programmer with Paul Cananaugh a dashing villain, former child actress Marcia Mae Jones as his estranged wife, diminutive comic Sid Melton as funny guy crook who only wants to use a gun and tough talking Iris Adrian as an earthy waitress with a wisecrack to serve with every cup of coffee or crueller. Davis is believable in the lead and Cavanaugh is deliciously sinister. However Adrian overacts (shouting every word as if she was playing to the third balcony) and Melton clowns simply too much. Sometimes perfectly tense, it goes off track with the comic interludes.

One for Ralph Sanford fans!

[JohnHowardReid · 4/10 · 10 December 2012]

When you see the names, Sam Newfield and any of his pseudonyms (Sherman Scott and Peter Stewart) on any movie, run – don't walk! – to your player or computer and turn the darn thing off. True, Newfield/Scott/Stewart did direct one or two movies (out of the close to 300 on which he put one of his names) that are reasonable viewing, but Hi-Jacked isn't anything special, unless you're a fan of Sid Melton (I'm not) or Ralph Sanford (I am). It does move at a reasonable pace, but it's pretty routine, even though the script delineates the hero as the dumbest of dumb clots. There's a scene in which boofhead drinks some doped coffee, but boof is so stupid he goes on drinking it even though it's sending him to bye-byes. Iris Adrian is in the support cast, but she's not at her best in this one either. In fact she passes up a grand opportunity to make hay with the menu by throwing her lines away far too fast.

A Lippert junker

[lor_ · 17 June 2023]

Beware of the placing of B-movies on a pedestal. I'm used to the lionizing by lovers of cheap junk from recent decades (a la Troma fandom in the spurious "so bad it's good" POV reflected in thousands of IMDb reviews) but in the case of "Hi-Jacked" we have an authentic, vintage B movie that also impresses the fans.

Actual movie has little to offer. Very weak comic relief from the usual source, Sid Melton, a flat performance by Jim Davis who went on to much bigger things in Hollywood and a tired "inside job" sort of story about a criminal gang preying on truckers. It's not interesting on any level and offers zero suspense or thrills.

Only surprise here, for a 1950 movie, is a sequence showing a tv magazine-format presentation depicting a fur coat fashion show to help set up a story line about stolen furs. It ends with a supposedly "cute" mention of its next episode having a visit inside a prison -lame comical foreshadowing. To feature television in a movie so uncritically at this time seems counterintuitive, given the threatening competition of the new medium to movies in real life.

Truck drivers crime film

[searchanddestroy-1 · 10 July 2023]

In France you had Gilles Grangier's GAS OIL, where a truck driver was involved with gangsters. So this one offers nothing new, everything is predictable but fun, agreeable with a Jim Davis in rather good shape and convincing in this role. Sam Newfield shows his medium quality stuff; he made better but also worse. Plus, the scheme of a man accused of a crime or offense which he did not commit and then tries to prove his innocence, this scheme is so boring to me, because the result is always the same in the end. So, I watched this one like a cow watching a train go by. It is short so I had no excuse not to try it.