1950 film by Hugo Fregonese
One Way Street is a 1950 American film noir crime film directed by Hugo Fregonese and starring James Mason, Märta Torén and Dan Duryea. The film takes place mainly in Mexico.[1]
Plot
Dr. Frank Matson, a physician, steals $200,000 from the mob boss John Wheeler, after a robbery Wheeler and his gang have pulled off. Matson goes on the run, intending to go to Mexico City. Wheeler's girlfriend, Laura Thorsen, accompanies him.
Forced by problems with the airplane to land in rural Mexico, for a time Matson and Laura establish a pleasant life and he is able to medically assist some of the villagers.
Eventually, word gets back to Matson that Wheeler knows where he is. He and Laura return to Los Angeles, planning to return the money, only to find Wheeler has been shot by Ollie, the one remaining member of the gang. About to meet the same fate, Matson produces a gun and kills Ollie instead.
Laura is waiting for him at a cafe. As they leave, Matson turns to go phone an airline to arrange his and Laura's return to Mexico, but he is hit by a car coming down the one-way street.
Production
Jeff Chandler was originally announced for the lead.[2]
Reception
Film critic Bosley Crowther dismissed the film as uninteresting, "Perhaps it is all the fault of the script, which has our hero vacillating between a life of crime and regeneration via a lady's love and an honest but unremunerative practice. What it all adds up to is a standard romantic melodrama illustrating the facts that crime obviously doesn't pay and that the scenery and people below the border are colorful ... Like its title, One Way Street is explicitly obvious and not especially exciting."[3]
