Hit And Run (1957) Wrecking Yard Noir

This film was a bit of a pleasant surprise. I'd never seen it before and did not know the storyline so when I saw it's wrecking yard setting I was hooked.

I lived in western Montana for roughly 24 years. Montana was quite off the beaten track back then. Coming from New York City I found much to my surprise that Montana was also in a sort of cultural and visual time lag. That visual time lag was in the vicinity of ten or twelve years. Instead of being 1972 it was as if you were still in 1962. There were quite a few cars still actively running about from the early to mid 60s and pickups and larger trucks from the late 40s and 50s.

They didn't use salt on the roads in Montana like they did in New York. Vehicles had a much longer life span. In winter after a big snow you didn't see pavement again in quite a few areas of the mountains until spring. They sanded the roads, so basically you drove on frozen sand packed snow the color of light butterscotch. Occasionally you'd get a mid winter thaw and sections of road in the open and exposed to the sun would bear off, the shaded passes in the mountains though would not. They had pull offs that were chain up areas and there were lots days where I made trips from Libby to Kalispell with tire chains for most of the 89 mile way on my 1949 Chevy 3/4 ton.

During my years in Montana there was also period of years back between 1977 - 1980 when my wife's step father-in-law Hugh suffered from a heart attack. He was an old cowboy/trucker who had made a lot money driving supply trucks 24/7 on the North Slope Haul Road for the Alaska Pipeline right at the get go in 1974. He made a killing. When he got back to Montana a year later he bought out his partner in the wrecking yard he part owned, married my wife's mother, and in 1976 had a mild heart attack. He had to take it easy and needed help to run the place.  I needed work so I offered to help out. We had a rent free house in the rear to live in once we cleaned out the auto parts that were stored in it. The wrecking yard was on the Flathead Indian Reservation, just South of Flathead Lake and just North of Ronan.

The way a typical Western wrecking yard, where you have a lot of acres to spread out is, you place all the makes of cars built by the same manufacturer together. That way makes it much easier to find interchanging parts. Most manufactures use the same carbs, starters, radiators, generators, water pumps, power steering pumps, gas tanks, and some body parts etc;, etc., between models. Ford used FoMoCo parts in Fords, Lincolns, and Mercurys. General Motors uses Delco parts in Chevys, GMCs, Buick, Cadillacs, Oldsmobiles. Chrysler uses Mopar parts in Chrysler, Dodges, and Plymouths.

For instance the only difference in a Delco starter was the "nose cone" where it bolted to the bell housing. It was a simple matter of undoing two bolts holding the "nose cone" to the starter motor and putting the one that fit the car you needed it for. Some starters mounted on the drivers side some on the passenger side.

So you'd set aside areas of the yard accordingly, Chevyland, Fordland, Dodgeville, the smaller company still in the business in the 70's was American Motors models and Jeep was still their best known model, they had their own motors and transmissions, however they often used accessory parts from all of the big three. We still had recently demised brands like Studebaker, Nash, Rambler, etc., etc., that we kept together. Sort of a everything else land.

Our supply of autos came from cleaning up junked cars from the various farms and ranches, or from what people wanted to sell us. We never payed more than $100 dollars for pickups of $50 dollars for cars. Being on the Rez the Flatheads would get occasional money allotments and they'd haul their junkers in to us and buy new cars and trucks.

If we had time we'd either tinker around with the cars to see if we could get them running again. This BTW was a major plot point in Hit And Run, or we'd pull the quick selling items, the generators, alternators, batteries, and starters, but only if the starters were easy to get to, which was usually on the six cylinder engines. Those parts we'd shelve in the shop.

We ran the yard do-it-yourself. We'd let people park at the shop and let them wander around with their own tools looking for what they needed. When they came back with the parts they took off, a lot of times we'd just pull a price out of our ass. We had a sort of sliding scale where we'd give breaks to down and out folks that looked as if they could use one. But even then you'd get some crazies. I remember one guy wanted a used fuel pump. A new one was about 30-35 dollars, I told the guy ten dollars and he went apocalyptic. "what is it plated in gold!" He paid it though/

We'd get advance orders over the phone and head out with the fork lifts and grab off parts. We had two of them an ex logging company Ross lift truck for the big stuff and a smaller Scoopmobile for the regular work. Each forklift had a toolbox, a cutting torch, and an air wrench.

I got to where I could pull any motor in twenty minutes. You didn't fuck around undoing everything, you just cut all the wires and hose lines. Lifted the car up by the front end. Took off the drive shaft, and air-wrenched off the bolts holding up the transmission mount. That loosed the engine and tranny. Then you dropped the car back down to the ground and either air wrenched off the engine mount bolts or cut them off with the smoke wrench. The final step was taking off the carburetor. Once the carb was off, you had the central hole in the intake manifold that you could insert a "C" shaped hook and with that pull the motor and tranny out.

The cars that had pretty much been stripped down to hulks we crushed in a homemade "smasher." The "smasher" was a 3/4 inch welded steel box filled with about  2 1/2 feet of concrete. It was hinged at one end. The steel lined concrete box fit into a slightly larger hollow steel box. This steel box had two slots where the forks of the Ross lift truck could slide in and lift out the crushed car.

The "smasher" ran off of an old Chrysler Hemi motor still housed in the front end of a 1956 Dodge D-500. The motor ran a winch which lifted one end of the concrete filled steel box. A hulk filled with as much scrap weight, i.e. cracked engine blocks, wheel hubs, axle housings etc. would be placed in the hollow steel box and the smasher would gravity drop upon it. The crushed car would be lifted out and stacked. When we got a semi load of crushed cars we'd ship them to Tacoma for scrap cash.

OK back to the film.

Written and directed by Hugo Hass who acted and directed a number of poverty row Film Noir, and based on a story by Herbert O. Phillips. The cinematography was by Walter Strenge and the Music by Franz Steininger..

Hit And Run stars Cleo Moore (711 Ocean Drive (1950), On Dangerous Ground (1951), Women's Prison (1955), and Over-Exposed (1956)) as Julie Hilmer, Hugo Haas as Gus Hilmer and hisTwin Brother, Vince Edwards (six classic Film Noir and Neo Noir The Mad Bomber (1973)) as Frank, Dolores Reed as Miranda, Mara Lea as Anita, Pat Goldin as the Undertaker, John Zaremba as Doctor, Robert Cassidy as the Sheriff, Carl Milletaire as the Lawyer, Dick Paxton as the Waiter, Julie Mitchum as Circus Girl Lion Tamer.

Another low budget Noir from Hass, that all follow variations of the same formula. The "Hass" formula being an average schlub who usually meets a woman (usually a blonde) who is just a little more than he can handle. He marries her. She takes advantage with the nearest warm body. The schlub pulls a neat twist some way or another and turns the tables on his wife and her lover.

Gus Hilmer (Hugo Hass)

In this film Hass plays Gus Hilmer a garage/wrecking yard owner. In Pickup he plays a railroad section man. In this film he meets a sort of club stripper/dancer Julie at a nightclub. In Pickup he meets a floozie at a traveling carnival.

Julie and Guss hit it off and get married. In this film his helper at the wrecking yard Frank steals his wife away. In Pickup it's the helper who works the section with him who wins his wife's affections.

Night club

Julie (Cleo Moore)

Frank (Vince Edwards)

Gus' Wrecking Yard

married

Gus' Wrecking Yard

In this film Hass has a twin brother David who has just gotten released from San Quintin. He does not tell his wife about him because he is ashamed. Gus sets David up in a house on some property nearby that he owns. The two lovers think that Gus just walks to the property in the evenings for exercise. The the two lovers hatch a plan to murder him by automobile as he walks back on the street.

Gus' brothers house

The beauty of Frank's plan is that he puts together a wreck out of various derelict cars in the yard gets it running, and once it serves its purpose he'll park it back in a row of wrecks and strip it down to a hulk again.

looking for the right car

Getting a wrecked car ready to run again

However, by mistake Frank and Julie run over Gus' brother David. The police, who know nothing of the brother assume that the dead man is Gus and Julie makes a positive identification.

waiting for Gus

Gus who has been holed up at his other property first makes an appearance to Julie at his own funeral as an ersatz "ghost."  He then haunts his house at the wrecking yard showing himself to Julie through a window. Tiring of the ghostly fun and games Gus then assumes his brother's identity and introduces himself to Julie and Frank as David. After the will is read David inherits half of the business and property. He moves into Gus' house, taking over the office room while Julie remains in the house and Frank in the attached attic apartment.. There Gus makes himself a general nuisance and keeps tabs on "widow" Julie and Frank.

In Pickup Hass goes suddenly deaf, he gets his pension from the RR and the twist in that film is that on a visit to town he gets sideswiped by a vehicle on the street gets knocked to the ground and hits his head on the pavement. His hearing is restored by the blow but he tells no one, and in doing so gets to eavesdrop on the two lovers as they, around the dinner table, plot to kill him and make it look like an accident.

In Hit And Run it all goes Noirsville when a Amazon circus lion tamer takes a liking to Frank and this Julie gets jealous.

Noirsville

  

Circus Girl Lion Tamer. (Julie Mitchum)  

The beauty of a Hugo Hass' productions were that so much was done on a shoestring, these films were probably shot in less than two weeks. Anybody with say a Canon EOS 70D and a boom mike and a handful of actors could easily make a similar film. The on location sets were two houses, a wrecking yard, a service station, a couple of cars and some interiors.

It's your typical low budget Hass Noir, watchable, a 6/10. Could use a restoration, screencaps from and online streamer.