Classic Film Guide

Thunder Road (1958)

Directed by Arthur Ripley, from a story provided by its uncredited producer and star Robert Mitchum, with a screenplay by James Atlee Phillips and Walter Wise, this B movie is the definitive moonshine bootlegging drama. Mitchum plays Lucas Doolin, who's returned from serving his country to rural North Carolina where his father Vernon (Trevor Bardette) has continued their family business of making and distributing alcohol illegally during his absence. Lucas is now the notorious wanted man, the driver of a tanker (a car that's been modified such that its gas tank can carry booze in lieu of gasoline) that the authorities haven't been able to catch. Gene Barry plays treasury agent Troy Barrett. Mitchum’s lookalike son James plays his younger brother Robin, a mechanic that Lucas allows to fix his cars but promises their mother (Francis Koon, uncredited) that he'll otherwise never participate in the family's illegal trade. Even though Lucas’s success has led to a higher concentration of policemen and federal agents in the area, the real threat to his continued exploits comes from Carl Kogan (Jacques Aubuchon), a gangster determined to buy-up or put out of business all the other bootleggers in the region which includes several neighboring states. Keely Smith, who plays Memphis nightclub singer Francie Wymore, and Sandra Knight (as Roxanna Ledbetter) who has a teenager's crush on Lucas, play women in the men's lives.

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