Hi-Jack Highway (1955) User Reviews

Gabin on tough road

[happytrigger-64-390517 · 7/10 · 26 September 2015]

Jean Gabin has been a farmer, a cop or a robber (sometimes both at the time), a sailor, a railroader, a doctor, a lawyer, and even an ex-President of France....

And in Gas-Oil, he is a trucker : I haven't seen all his movies, but I think it's the first one we see Gabin as a trucker. And that is the main quality of Gas-Oil, it is a road-movie in Paris and around and in Auvergne : and we can appreciate the narrow roads with much less car flow than today. There were also a lot of Michelin panels, especially in Auvergne because they were manufactured there. We even see a damaged four faced panel in a sequence at the end that was inaugurated by André Michelin the 27th of October, 1927.

Gabin is an ordinary and peaceful trucker threatened by robbers. And that was a mistake, robbers with guns in a car have no power face to truckers who own the road in their powerful trucks. Gabin and his trucker friends look strongly determined to trap those dirty robbers who attack their freedom, their solidarity is really touching. Just enjoy Gabin in a Willème LD 610 truck (and his shark nose), climbing slowly up and down wearing an overall (maybe for the first time in his career).

In his next movie, "Des Gens Sans Importance", Gabin is again a trucker in overall, but this time, it is a much more stronger and unforgettable story. We shall see again Gabin in overall as a proletarian in "Rue des Prairies", but in pure Audiard touch.

Gas-Oil is the first movie played by Jean Gabin with dialogues by Michel Audiard : imagine their meeting.

And it was shot in the most productive period of Jean Gabin.

Gabin Doesn't Need A Truck To Carry This Movie

[boblipton · 6/10 · 17 July 2023]

Trucker Jean Gabin is doing as many hauls as possible. He's got a new, big rig to pay off. After an evening with his girlfriend, teacher Jeanne Moreau, it's off at 5 in the morning to pick up a load. Except her runs over a guy who's lying in the middle of the road. The police take his statement, impound his truck, and try to get him to confess he'd been drinking the night before. He goes mad for a while, but Mlle Moreau tells him she's resigned and is moving into his place, and he gets his rig back. And then some guys in a grey sedan start shadowing him, and the dead man's widow, Ginette Leclerc, asks him about a case with millions of francs in it her husband had been carrying.

One of the pleasures of watching Gabin act is that whatever he's playing, that's who he is. Here he's a trucker, and you don't doubt that Gabin could get into the cab of a heavy truck and drive it perfectly. He rarely gives a layered performance. He's just a guy, like Cagney, who plants his feet, looks the camera head on, and tells the truth.

It's one of the many movies Gabin made with Gilles Grangier in the decade, relying on Gabin's star power to attract a good cast and tell a simple story. Here, it's also about the community of the proleteriat, the truck drivers and the shippers, out against the liars and thieves, and the police have very little to do with it. It's not a great movie, but the cast, particularly Gabin, carries it quite easily.

Mrs. Moreau saves this action flick

[Cristi_Ciopron · 6/10 · 27 July 2006]

Mrs. Moreau does,on her own,a lot to save this movie.(I like her more than ever.)Gabin does nothing.As a result,"Gas-Oil" is Mrs. Moreau's show,and not Gabin's.

Mrs. Moreau is one of the two best French movie artists.The other one may be Mrs. Signoret.So,two women are the two greatest French movie stars ever!

For an opposite case,check Mrs. Girardot's ridiculous,abominable acting in "Une robe ...".That's what a bad script can do out of an actress.

In fact,Gabin does nothing for the role,and much less for this movie;he does not help the movie,he does not assist it,he does not try to take it over or control it.Gabin was one of the most underused and undervalued actors."Gas ..." is another sample of underusing Gabin;Delon had a similar fate,he was constantly underused.

We sure get a lot of Gabin in this movie;but not a very good one,alas!He looks unsolicited,he does not seem to observe the misery of the movie.I think Gabin was a very selfish man and that he cared only about himself,in a very obtuse and rudimentary way.(If he would have done more for the movie as a whole,he would have done a lot more for his screen presence,also;but he doesn't seem to have thought this way!)

Gabin looks apathetic,limited,indifferent,and has a very self-satisfied,complacent,selfish,rude air.Vain and gross.

Mastroianni,who was a giant actor,NEVER indulged in self-complacent apathy and self-satisfaction.Mastroianni was always thinking about the movie,not about himself.Mastroianni was interested in constructing,in composing the movie as a whole.He was completely transitive and selfless,altruist;look at Kitano,at O'Toole,at Stamp:they are acting along this line,too:the selflessness.That is what makes them so great.

"Gas-Oil"'s script is silly,campy.Gabin seems to never have hesitated accepting these stupid scripts ("Gas-Oil","Des Gens ...",etc.,etc.,etc.!).It looks like he was endlessly mocking himself.

The same year,1955,Gabin made another six movies.With 7 movies,'55 is maybe Gabin's busiest year.(In '58,"only" 5 Gabin movies were released.'68 will be his final year with more than two movies released.)

I guess "Gas ..." is supposed to be a thriller.It is not.This also means that Gabin did not know how to make an adventure flick ,how to entertain the public when no script and no real director were available.

"Gas ..." is not a bad movie."Une robe "('81) is,indeed,a very bad movie;but "Gas ..." is not that bad.It addresses to an execrable taste.It lacks intelligence,resourcefulness,pace,ideas,creativity,originality.It stinks of suburb,promiscuity,coarseness,stupidity."Popular" cinema at its worst.Gabin's real fans chew rather well this stuff.It is a low-budget movie from the '50s,saved by Mrs. Moreau.Unfortunately,"Gas ..." targets the proletarians,the slum.

This film is badly written,but Mrs. Moreau gives it some dignity,some decency.She manages to give her own role density and charm."Gas-Oil" is important only as a Mrs. Moreau movie.I have watched it,and enjoyed it,as a Mrs. Moreau film.

I love writing about Mrs. Moreau.

Truck drivers camaraderie

[dbdumonteil · 6 July 2006]

Another film which shows how Gilles Grangier's career in the fifties was unfairly neglected.Perhaps the Gabin/Moreau pairing does not always work well ,in spite of the actors' talent.She could be his daughter and the fact she is a schoolteacher does not help.As the character says " I prefer tea with milk;and I do not go much for eggs and sausages" .

All that remains rings true: the atmosphere ,on the roads where rain keeps falling down or in dark rooms where Ginette Leclerc (who used to portray a bitch as no other French actress could)plays the tearful widow' s part ,is sticky and dirty.It is also a good depiction of the world of truck drivers and their loyal camaraderie.The ending predates "Duel" by twenty years.

Nostalgic look at 1950's rural France

[nicholas.rhodes · 8/10 · 15 December 2005]

Maybe I have been overgenerous with my voting on this one but I must admit to being strangely attracted to films made by Gilles Grangier ! It's true this film is nothing over the top, it's a story about truck drivers in Central France, ostensibly in the region of Clermont Ferrand ( Auvergne ) and in particular where their lives meet up with those of a group of gangsters who ( wrongly ) believe that one of the drivers, played by Jean Gabin, has stolen booty from a dead man that he ran over. The harassement becomes more intense throughout the film until the end where finally Gabin gets all his truck-driver pals to close in on and "corner" the gangsters' in their car.

OK the story may be banal but I like this film for its nostalgic portrait of 1950's France. I like the films that Gabin made in this "entre deux ages", neither the fougue of his youth such as in la Belle Equipe nor the elderly patriarch figure of La Horse or Le Clan des Siciliens. In this film, as in Voici le Temps des Assassins, poor old Gabin is victim of circumstances beyond his control and he has to make the best of it. I like him in this type of role as he comes across as very natural, sincere and lovable.

His lady friend in the film, a schoolmistress played by Jeanne Moreau who looks absolutely sublime in the film brings a romantic and emotionally stabilizing element for a man who is in need of love and affection and is over worried about paying off instalments on his newly acquired truck.

The film contains numerous scenes of rural France in the 1950's and we see other well known actors such as the much missed Marcel Bozuffi and even Roger Hanin ( very young ). I was ENTHRALLED by the musette waltz that starts off the film and which was composed by Jean Yatove, the first few minutes is filmed from the back of a moving truck and we see typical views of the roads of central rural France. Grangier had the knack of putting beautiful music in his films, as was further confirmed by "125 rue Montmartre".

Picture quality on the recently issued Rene Château DVD is excellent quality black and white though subtitles and other language tracks are sadly lacking. Once again this film, although one of his minor works, really confirms the status of Jean Gabin as one of the pillars of French cinema and indeed French popular culture. The film would deserve to be somewhat better known worldwide but I don't hold out much hope for this !