High Sierra (film)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

High Sierra

Theatrical poster
Directed by Raoul Walsh
Produced by Mark Hellinger
Written by Story:
W.R. Burnett
Screenplay:
John Huston
W.R. Burnett
Starring Ida Lupino
Humphrey Bogart
Alan Curtis
Arthur Kennedy
Music by Adolph Deutsch
Cinematography Tony Gaudio
Editing by Jack Killifer
Distributed by Warner Bros.
Release date(s) January 21, 1941
(U.S.A.)
Running time 100 minutes
Country United States
Language English
Allmovie profile
IMDb profile

High Sierra (1941) is an early heist film and film noir written by John Huston and W.R. Burnett from the novel by Burnett. The movie features Ida Lupino and Humphrey Bogart and was directed by Raoul Walsh on location at Whitney Portal, halfway up Mount Whitney.[1]

The screenplay written by Bogart's friend and drinking partner, John Huston, adapted from the novel by William R. Burnett (also known for among others Little Caesar and Scarface). [2] The film cemented a strong personal and professional connection between Bogart and Huston.[3]

The film was noted for its extensive location shooting, especially in the climactic final scenes, as the authorities pursue Bogart's character, gangster "Mad Dog" Roy Earle, from Lone Pine up to the foot of the mountain.

Contents

[edit] Plot

A gangster, Big Mac, is planning a robbery at a resort casino in California, so he arranges to have the experienced Roy Earle released from prison back East by a pardon from the Governor. Roy Earle is to take charge of the operation. Roy drives across the country to a camp in the mountains to meet up with the three men who will assist him in the heist: Louis Mendoza, who is working in the resort, and Red and Babe, who are already living at the camp. Babe has also brought along a young woman, Marie. Roy wants to send Marie back to Los Angeles, but after some argument she convinces Roy to let her stay. At the camp Roy also is adopted by a small dog called Pard.

Marie falls in love with Roy as he plans and executes the robbery, but he does not reciprocate. On the drive up to the mountains, Roy met the family of Velma, a young woman with a deformed foot who walks with a limp. Roy pays for corrective surgery to allow Velma to walk normally. While she is convalescing, Roy asks Velma to marry her, but she refuses, explaining that she is engaged to a man from back home. When Velma's fiancee arrives, Roy then turns to Marie, and the two become lovers.

The heist goes wrong when they are interrupted by a security guard. Mendoza, Red and Babe are involved in a car accident; Red and Babe die. Mendoza talks to the police.

While Roy and Marie leave town, a dragnet is put out for him. The two separate in order to allow Marie time to escape, while Roy is pursued until he climbs one of the Sierra mountains, where he holes up overnight. Shortly after sunrise, Roy trades shots with the police down the mountain from him, he hears Pard barking and runs out calling Marie's name and is shot dead by a sharp shooter from behind.

[edit] Background

Actor George Raft was originally intended to play the Bogart part, but as with The Maltese Falcon, Raft turned down the role.

This was the last major film in which Bogart played a gangster (his final gangster role was in The Big Shot in 1942).

Bogart's then pet dog, Zero, appears in the movie as Bogart's character's dog, "Pard". In the final scene, Buster Wiles, a stunt performer, plays Roy's corpse and his hand is filled with biscuits to encourage Pard to lick Roy's hand.[4]

[edit] Cast

[edit] Critical reception

Critic Bosley Crowther liked the acting in the picture, and wrote, "As gangster pictures go, this one has everything—speed, excitement, suspense and that ennobling suggestion of futility which makes for irony and pity. Mr. Bogart plays the leading role with a perfection of hard-boiled vitality, and Ida Lupino, Arthur Kennedy, Alan Curtis and a newcomer named Joan Leslie handle lesser roles effectively. Especially, is Miss Lupino impressive as the adoring moll. As gangster pictures go—if they do— it's a perfect epilogue. Count on the old guard and Warners: they die but never surrender.[5]

Time magazine reviewed the film when released as having "less of realistic savagery than of the quaint, nostalgic atmosphere of costume drama." The reviewer noted, "What makes High Sierra something more than a Grade B melodrama is its sensitive delineation of Gangster Earle's character. Superbly played by Actor Bogart, Earle is a complex human being, a farmer boy who turned mobster, a gunman with a string of murders on his record who still is shocked when newsmen call him "Mad-Dog" Earle. He is kind to the mongrel dog (Zero) that travels with him, befriends a taxi dancer (Ida Lupino) who becomes his moll, goes out of his way to help a crippled girl (Joan Leslie). All Roy Earle wants is freedom. He finds it for good on a lonely peak in the mountains."[6]

[edit] Adaptations

The film was remade twice:

[edit] References

[edit] Notes

  1. ^ High Sierra at the Internet Movie Database.
  2. ^ Sperber, A.M. (1997). Bogart. New York: William Morrow & Co., p. 119. ISBN 0-68807-539-8. 
  3. ^ Meyers, Jeffrey (1997). Bogart: A Life in Hollywood. London: Andre Deutsch Ltd, p. 115. ISBN 0-233-99144-1. 
  4. ^ Hughes (2006). Crime Wave, page 16. Retrieved on 2008-04-17. 
  5. ^ Crowther, Bosley. The New York Times, film review, "High Sierra, Considers the Tragic and Dramatic Plight of the Last Gangster," January 25, 1941. Last accessed: January 29, 2008.
  6. ^ Time. "The New Pictures," February 17, 1944. Last accessed: April 17, 2008.

[edit] External links


v • d • e
American films of the 1940s
1940 •1941 •1942 •1943 •1944 •1945 •1946 •1947 •1948 •1949