High Sierra

Rating:
Summary: Oh Well! We will always have Paris!
Review: "High Sierra" struck this reviewer as a 3rd rate gangster film. This reviewer is shocked (!)to believe that Humphrey Bogart made his reputation on such releases. Is this how he became a star? Heaven help us! HS revolves around a gang that can't shoot straight attempting an absurdly amateurish hotel stick up. As the film opens, a crooked businessman springs Bogie from the cooler just so he can lead the job! Besides the farcical plot, HS is burdened further by manifestly silly subplots including: 1) too much gratuitous tough guy talk, 2) a needless attempts to show the `soft side" of Bogie by paying for a lame girl's healing operation and 3) the insertion of the token "girl" role of Ida Lupino and her little dog. Of course the dog comes along on the stick up! The closing scene is simply preposterous as Bogie staves off the cops (in the Sierras of course), clad only in a black business suit, which he never removes throughout the movie. Warner must have been scrimping on wardrobe costs. This reviewer has posthumous suggestions for the studio. 1) Cut the running time from 100 to 85-90 minutes by eliminating those subplots. 2) Give the girl role to Lizabeth Scott. She would have kept those men, not to mention that little dog, in line! Since it is some 54 years too late to actually implement those helpful ideas, it might be best to ignore this clinker. If we want to remember Bogie, we will always have "Dark Passage" -- and "Casablanca".

Rating:
Summary: TOUGH GUY GET BURNED - GREAT LOOKING DVD!
Review: "High Sierra" is the story of an convict who is makes parol only to find himself thrown back into the hopper of organized crime. Bogie is the bad guy, tough as nails and raw as meat in a butcher's window. He's got a soft side though, and in this movie it's for Ida Lupino - a largely forgotten but extremely talented actress who's hooked up with two small time operators who are planning a hotel robbery job in the Sierra mountains. Great action and suspense!
TRANSFER: VERY NICE! Warner's usual sterling quality is at work here. The credit sequence is a bit rough and there is a bit of instability in the original camera negative but over all this is one fine looking transfer. The gray scale is impeccably rendered. Blacks are black. Contrast and shadows are well balanced. There appears to be very little in the way of age related artifacts. There are NO signs of digital compression. The audio is MONO but nicely rendered.
EXTRAS: A featurette that manages to cover a lot of ground in a very short time and provides a succinct look at the film's backstory.
BOTTOM LINE: This Bogart classic is an absolute must for anyone who appreciates great performances and wonderful story telling. Ah yes, I remember why it is that I fell in love with the movies!

Rating:
Summary: TOUGH GUY GET BURNED - GREAT LOOKING DVD!
Review: "High Sierra" is the story of an convict who is makes parol only to find himself thrown back into the hopper of organized crime. Bogie is the bad guy, tough as nails and raw as meat in a butcher's window. He's got a soft side though, and in this movie it's for Ida Lupino - a largely forgotten but extremely talented actress who's hooked up with two small time operators who are planning a hotel robbery job in the Sierra mountains. Great action and suspense!
TRANSFER: VERY NICE! Warner's usual sterling quality is at work here. The credit sequence is a bit rough and there is a bit of instability in the original camera negative but over all this is one fine looking transfer. The gray scale is impeccably rendered. Blacks are black. Contrast and shadows are well balanced. There appears to be very little in the way of age related artifacts. There are NO signs of digital compression. The audio is MONO but nicely rendered.
EXTRAS: A featurette that manages to cover a lot of ground in a very short time and provides a succinct look at the film's backstory.
BOTTOM LINE: This Bogart classic is an absolute must for anyone who appreciates great performances and wonderful story telling. Ah yes, I remember why it is that I fell in love with the movies!

Rating:
Summary: IN THE MOUNTAINS WITH BOGIE.
Review: As gangster pictures go, this one has everything: speed, excitement, suspence and that ennobling suggestion of futility which makes for irony and pity. Bogie plays the leading role with a perfection of hard-boiled vitality, and Ida Lupino, Arthur Kennedy and Alan Curtis handle their lesser roles effectively. Lupino is outstanding as the adoring moll. I just viewed the colorized version of this film and it was very life-like. Although Joan Leslie and Bogie don't really click and their attraction for each other seems unlikely, this is one of Bogart's best performances. Ida Lupino and Bogart seemed a good match; they would have been great together in other films of the genre. As a greying criminal whose time is short, Humphrey pursues the final caper because that is the only thing he knows. This was Bogie's first solid role as a sympathethic lead & his career skyrocketed from here.

Rating:
Summary: An Old Rebel and his Faithful Lady
Review: At the close of "High Sierra" Ida Lupino exhibits a look of serenity as she exclaims the word "free!" It symbolizes her feelings over the death of the man she loved, Humphrey Bogart, in Raoul Walsh's gripping gangster drama.

Bogart is trapped in a life not of his own ultimate making in a society that is rapidly changing. The wily old gangland doctor who treats him when he is wounded after a gun battle with former policeman and more recent mob operative Barton MacLane constantly reminds him of his temporary status as an old line bank robber living in a swiftly perishing world.

At the film's beginning we see that Bogart, who is serving a life term for armed robbery, is sprung through a pardon from the governor, a result set in motion by mob operatives greasing the wheels of political operatives. He is controlled lock, stock and barrel by the mob and is immediately instructed to travel to California to preside over a robbery of a luxury hotel in the High Sierras where wealthy people go and women store their jewelry in a safe.

As a hard-bitten professional Bogart immediately becomes involved with amateurs. Arthur Kennedy and Alan Curtis are two young, inexperienced hotheads under his command. Cornell Wilde plays a highly fearful desk clerk at the hotel who has agreed to cooperate with Bogart and his gang, but who is highly fearful, prompting skepticism by Bogart that he will collapse when the going gets tough.

Bogart's skepticism toward Wilde proves justified after he is apprehended following the holdup. Kennedy and Curtis, in a rattled state, traveling in a separate vehicle from Bogart and Lupino, are involved in an accident and die. When Wilde survives the accident, he tells all to the police about Bogart, resulting in a manhunt and spectacular chase into the High Sierras for the man the media has begun calling "Mad Dog" Earle, a name that infuriates him. Eventually he is gunned down by a police sharpshooter after refusing to turn himself in, preferring to die rather than go back to prison and face the same kind of life sentence he had endured before being released.

Lupino sticks by Bogart through thick and thin. She has grown up on the wrong side of the tracks and Bogart understands her very well. Initially he hopes to find love with Joan Leslie, a young woman he proposes to and finances an operation for to correct a club foot. Instead she lets him know that she is in love with a man from Ohio, someone Bogart meets later and instantly dislikes. After his final meeting with Leslie, who tells him she never loved him, Bogart is then able to adjust to an exclusive relationship with Lupino, who prefers him to men like the younger Kennedy and Curtis, seeing him as an experienced protector and a trusted father figure

John Huston handled screenplay activity along with W.R. Burnett, who was helping adapt his own novel to the cinema. A master craftsman of the criminal genre, Burnett wrote "Little Caesar" and "Asphalt Jungle," which also became tremendous screen successes. This is the film which enabled Huston to break away from exclusive screenwriting duties and launch a new career as a director in "The Maltese Falcon," which proved to be the launching of Bogart as a superstar. Please note that the younger performer Ida Lupino was billed above him in "High Sierra," but major stardom soon beckoned for the great older screen rebel who was in many ways James Dean with a few more years under his belt.

Rating:
Summary: On the Run
Review: Bank-robber Roy Earle (Bogart) may be outside the law, but he's a lot more sympathetic than those functionaries carrying out the law. Of course, they get him in the end, just as the production code of the day said they must. In the meantime, however, we're treated to a zeitgeist glimpse of the Depression Era, as captured by screenwriters John Huston and W.R. Burnett. Together they underscore Earle's connection to ordinary folks, whether passing time with a dirt farmer, befriending a penniless crippled girl, or shooting the breeze with her folksy father. Clearly he's an extention of them, and when he 'breaks free' at movie's end, we know audiences of the day break free of their own oppressive conditions, if only for a moment.

This is a milestone Bogart movie, the one that catapulted him onto the Hollywood A-list as the soft-hearted tough guy that would become his signature. Good as he is -- and looking like John Dillinger in a prison haircut -- I like Ida Lupino's soulful gun moll even better. Together, she and Sylvia Sydney defined the downtrodden, yet gutsy, lower class woman of the time. Here she clings to outlaw Earle and their ugly mutt like it's her last shot at life, which it probably is, the script discreetly implying she's been passed from man to man for years. So at film's end, when, ennobled by true love, her eyes uplift and a beatific glow calls forth, we know that a dignity is restored and a past transcended -- and the "High" in High Sierra comes to stand for a lot more than hard-scrabble mountaintop.

Rating:
Summary: Classic Bogart - Classic Film
Review: Bogart fans rejoiced when High Sierra was finally released on DVD. Bogart plays Roy Earle, freed from prison for the sole purpose of getting "that last big score".Bogart does a tremendous job with this complex role showing the 'tough as nails' side he's known for and a kind, gentle man who breaks many of his own rules because of his heart. Although he didn't recieve top billing, it's clear Bogart is the star. It's hard to believe he wasn't Warner's first choice for the role.

The DVD isn't overflowing with extras. There's a nice short extra which tells how Bogie came into the role of Roy Earle but that's about it. The picture quality is excellent making it steal and a must for any classic movie lover's collection.

Rating:
Summary: Bogart Breakout
Review: High Sierra (1941) is considered by most to be Humphrey Bogart's first real, breakout role, playing a part that wasn't initially offered to him. Bogart, the fifth member of Warner Brothers famous 'Murderers Row', came into the role of Roy 'Mad Dog' Earle only after fellow 'Row' members Paul Muni and George Raft didn't accept the part, one disagreeing on the script and subsequent changes, and the other being talked out of taking the part by Bogart, respectively. Bogart, who hadn't quite reached the level of big name star by this point, as evident to second billing to costar Ida Lupino, wanted the role badly, as he knew the character of Earle was something he could really sink his teeth into, and showcase his talent to the world.

As I said, Bogart plays Roy 'Mad Dog' Earle, a convicted bank robber serving a lengthy prison term, a life sentence, if I'm not mistaken, who has just been released. We soon find that Roy's early release isn't due to parole for good behavior, but strings pulled by his old boss, Big Mac (Donald MacBride). Seems Big Mac has a score in California that he wants Roy in on, so Roy leaves the Midwest to make the connection. Along the way, Roy has a chance meeting with Pa Goodhue (Henry Travers), a farmer who lost his farm, and is now traveling west with his wife and his clubfooted granddaughter Velma (Joan Leslie), who we will see again later. On reaching the Sierra mountains, Roy meets with the other members of the criminal enterprise Big Mac has arranged, two younger, hot-tempered men, Babe and Red, who have a have a female companion, Marie, played by Ida Lupino. Roy objects to having a woman around, as it's just an unnecessary complication. Marie manages to get Roy to change his mind, as she despises the thought of having to return to her previous career of dancing in a two-bit hall with men for a quarter a dance. Soon Roy learns of the score, and things seem easy enough, but even the simplest plans can go awry.

Directed by actor/writer/director/producer Raoul Walsh, High Sierra is a rich, tense noir crime drama based on a novel by W.R. Burnett and adapted for the screen by Burnett and legendary director/actor/writer/producer John Huston. Bogart really adds depth to his character of Roy, presenting the duality of a seemingly cold-blooded killer who has a soft side. That certainly doesn't mean he's soft, especially when someone gets in the way of his plans. Presented is a character who knows his time is past, and is looking to make his way out, and having thoughts of a future that will never be...and then settling for less than he hoped for, not realizing that maybe that was even too much to hope for...the supporting cast was wonderful, but I found the sort of pseudo comic relief of the character Algernon, a black worker at the fishing camp Roy and his small gang hole up before the score, played by Willie Best, a bit awkward. At the time, it was probably more acceptable, but the stereotyping may chaff contemporary audiences. A minor point, but one I hope wouldn't sour potential viewers from seeking out this film. I just try to understand it for what it was and is, a form of ignorance that has, hopefully, long since past. Best to acknowledge it happened and move on. What I found really interesting was how the noir concept was flawlessly transplanted from dark city streets to the majestic Sierra mountains on the Neveda /California border. Another thing I really loved was the snappy exchanges and use of gangster colloquialisms. The dialogue zings along, just adding a real element of fun to the movie, despite the drama nature of the material.

The picture quality here is beautiful, and the audio sounds wonderful. I was also pleased to see an excellent featurette called "Curtains for Roy Earle", which talks about how Bogart got the role in the movie, his minor skirmish with the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC), and the film in general. Also included is a theatrical trailer for the film. If you're a fan of Humphrey Bogart, High Sierra is a must see film. If you like good movies in general, you won't be disappointed here. While the role of Roy `Mad Dog' Earle may not be the one most remember Bogart for, it certainly confirmed his status as an actor in every sense of the word, and served well to showcase his talent and made him a star. Another film soon to follow, The Maltese Falcon (1941) took the star and made him a legend.

Cookieman108

Rating:
Summary: "I wouldn't give you two cents for a dame without a temper."
Review: High Sierra (1941) is considered by most to be Humphrey Bogart's first real, breakout role, playing a part that wasn't initially offered to him. Bogart, the fifth member of Warner Brothers famous 'Murderers Row', came into the role of Roy 'Mad Dog' Earle only after fellow 'Row' members Paul Muni and George Raft didn't accept the part, one disagreeing on the script and subsequent changes, and the other being talked out of taking the part by Bogart, respectively. Bogart, who hadn't quite reached the level of big name star by this point, as evident to second billing to costar Ida Lupino, wanted the role badly, as he knew the character of Earle was something he could really sink his teeth into, and showcase his talent to the world.

As I said, Bogart plays Roy 'Mad Dog' Earle, a convicted bank robber serving a lengthy prison term, a life sentence, if I'm not mistaken, who has just been released. We soon find that Roy's early release isn't due to parole for good behavior, but strings pulled by his old boss, Big Mac (Donald MacBride). Seems Big Mac has a score in California that he wants Roy in on, so Roy leaves the Midwest to make the connection.

Along the way, Roy has a chance meeting with Pa Goodhue (Henry Travers), a farmer who lost his farm, and is now traveling west with his wife and his clubfooted granddaughter Velma (Joan Leslie), who we will see again later.

On reaching the Sierra mountains, Roy meets with the other members of the criminal enterprise Big Mac has arranged, two younger, hot-tempered men, Babe and Red, who have a have a female companion, Marie, played by Ida Lupino. Roy objects to having a woman around, as it's just an unnecessary complication. Marie manages to get Roy to change his mind, as she despises the thought of having to return to her previous career of dancing in a two-bit hall with men for a quarter a dance. Soon Roy learns of the score, and things seem easy enough, but even the simplest plans can go awry.

Directed by actor/writer/director/producer Raoul Walsh, High Sierra is a rich, tense noir crime drama based on a novel by W.R. Burnett and adapted for the screen by Burnett and legendary director/actor/writer/producer John Huston. Bogart really adds depth to his character of Roy, presenting the duality of a seemingly cold-blooded killer who has a soft side. That certainly doesn't mean he's soft, especially when someone gets in the way of his plans. Presented is a character who knows his time is past, and is looking to make his way out, and having thoughts of a future that will never be...and then settling for less than he hoped for, not realizing that maybe that was even too much to hope for...the supporting cast was wonderful, but I found the sort of pseudo comic relief of the character Algernon, a black worker at the fishing camp Roy and his small gang hole up before the score, played by Willie Best, a bit awkward. At the time, it was probably more acceptable, but the stereotyping may chaff contemporary audiences. A minor point, but one I hope wouldn't sour potential viewers from seeking out this film. I just try to understand it for what it was and is, a form of ignorance that has, hopefully, long since past. Best to acknowledge it happened and move on. What I found really interesting was how the noir concept was flawlessly transplanted from dark city streets to the majestic Sierra mountains on the Neveda /California border. Another thing I really loved was the snappy exchanges and use of gangster colloquialisms. The dialogue zings along, just adding a real element of fun to the movie, despite the drama nature of the material.

The picture quality here is beautiful, and the audio sounds wonderful. I was also pleased to see an excellent featurette called "Curtains for Roy Earle", which talks about how Bogart got the role in the movie, his minor skirmish with the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC), and the film in general. Also included is a theatrical trailer for the film. If you're a fan of Humphrey Bogart, High Sierra is a must see film. If you like good movies in general, you won't be disappointed here. While the role of Roy 'Mad Dog' Earle may not be the one most remember Bogart for, it certainly confirmed his status as an actor in every sense of the word, and served well to showcase his talent and made him a star. Another film soon to follow, The Maltese Falcon (1941) took the star and made him a legend.

Cookieman108

Rating:
Summary: The Peaks of High Sierra Attract Clashing Personalities
Review: HIGH SIERRA is a gangster film, but it is also much more than that. Prior to HIGH SIERRA'S release in 1941, star Humphrey Bogart, who plays Roy 'Mad Dog' Earle, had played a host of snarling hoodlums, most of whom were one-dimensional, but in Bogart's hands, he still managed to infuse each with a level of complexity that only he could deliver. But it took his Roy Earle role to finally establish what has since been copied many times by future cinema criminals, the man on the run who, despite his willingness to kill, still maintains a Hemingwayesque code of conduct that allows him to function as the moral center of the film.

Roy Earle is a life-long criminal, one who has spent years in prison, seeing up close the results of what happens to inmates who lack self-discipline and a moral code of conduct. For him, crime is not an end, nor are the ill-gotten gains. For him crime is the only response to a life that has denied him any other avenue. For life to have any meaning, he must adhere to a rigid code of conduct that is as every bit as moral (at least to him) as that which drives the very policemen who seek to apprehend him. Those who know him immediately recognize that in Earle, beats the heart and soul of a near-extinct species, one who is paradoxically a fearlessly moral gunman who will risk his own life for a cause or for a trusted friend. When Earle is released from prison, he is talking to a seriously ill cohort, Mac, who is planning one more high profile crime before he dies. Mac, who bemoans the lack of old style gangsters with class, tells Earle, "You know Roy, it is good to even talk to a guy like you." Mac has hired a pair of inexperienced thugs to help Earle, but Earle sees that they do not have what it takes to succeed in a life of crime. He expects them to screw up, and when they do, he shows no remorse at their demise. There are two subplots that suggest that Earle's code of conduct, while admirable in the larger sense, can sometimes cause him intense emotional pain when he feels betrayed by one whom he has allowed himself to grow close to. Ida Lupino is Marie, a female counterpart to Earle. She has had a rough adolescence, but sees in him her soulmate. She could be good for Roy, if only he would let her. Joan Leslie is Velma, a twenty-year old seemingly innocent girl-child, who represents everything that Roy thinks would elevate him from thug to respectability. Velma has a club-foot but is young and pretty, so Roy lends her the money for an operation. She repays him in a manner that surely ranks with the very worst sort of cinematic ingrates. It is painful to watch Velma show her true colors and see the crushing result on a man who thought that nothing could hurt him like that.

And in the background lie the high Sierras, a vast set of peaks that act as metaphorical magnets, attracting the interplay between decent but misguided types like Roy and Marie and the truly inhuman types like Velma and Roy's hapless colleagues. The clashing between Roy and the police is not just the literal gunplay between the forces of law and order and those of crime, but, in the film's final scenes of Roy at bay, suggest that a style of life and a code of conduct have been judged and found wanting. HIGH SIERRA is an unforgettable classic that makes us remember that morality and decency can be found even in the most unlikely of settings.