Simply A Masterpiece

Instant Favorite.

Absolutely Fantastic

This movie was so-so. It had it's moments, but wasn't the greatest.

This film shows Humphrey Bogart's incredible versatility and natural talent.The story and his acting as a gangster are so believable and Ida Lupino was a perfect match. Her performance was so great that in my mind she is forever typecast in the role.How many times can you say you enjoyed every minute of a movie? I'd put a small handful in that category, all of which star Humphrey Bogart or John Wayne.This one is even available in digital HD! Thanks Warner Brothers - score huge!

Sickly Big Mac has planned a big score and paid top dollars to get a governor's pardon for his imprisoned compatriot Roy Earle (Humphrey Bogart). Roy is released and drives to a Californian mountain fishing camp to join his crew, Red and Babe. Babe had picked up dance hall girl Marie (Ida Lupino). Louis Mendoza is the inside man at the hotel. Roy tries to kick out Marie but she convinces him to let her stay. Roy befriends crippled Velma (Joan Leslie) and her grandfather (Henry Travers) who are traveling to LA from their foreclosed farm.This tries a little too hard to humanize Roy with the hard-scrabbled family. The character has grown out of his Mad Dog nickname. The action and the story could be harsher and grittier. Despite some softer round corners, Bogie is Bogie and he makes this good. He is magnetic and this solid crime drama becomes better.

" . . . that wasn't wrong," confesses ten-cent hooker "Marie" (Ida Lupino) to Public Enemy Number One "Roy" (Humphrey Bogart). HIGH SIERRA reveals that gasoline cost about 24 cents per gallon in the high mark-up area of California's desert, but obviously inflation has pumped up the price of sex even more than that of gas since WWII. Roy is a poor sap who's been watching too many doctor movies, and believes that he can get a girl half his age simply by underwriting a little cosmetic surgery. Of course, Humphrey himself is so soft that he felt terrible seeing Ida walking toward the gas chamber in THEY DRIVE BY NIGHT, so he writes her a get-out-of-jail-free card toward the end of SIERRA. Unfortunately, Ida's dog "Pard" (Zero) eats Humphrey's homework, so SIERRA concludes with Ida once again chamber-bound. Hanging, frying, or gassing women was a frequent theme of American flicks from this period (remember Mary Astor in THE MALTESE FALCON, among others), since it was the only way one infamous member of the MPAA censor board could get off. This Perv had little interest in seeing the MEN actually most guilty getting their just desserts on film: Note how "Louis Mendoza," SIERRA's "inside man," gets off Scot Free, along with ALL of the well-heeled Crime King Pins wearing suits more expensive than Roy's.

The film that elevated Humphrey Bogart from Hollywood hoodlum to romantic lead, "High Sierra" deserves respect. It's not his greatest role, or that entertaining a film, but it works insofar as director Raoul Walsh gives his star all the right support to cement a winning impression.Bogie is still a hood in this one, but one with a heart. Roy Earle is a tough-luck robber who wants to go straight but needs one last big heist for a sick old man who got him sprung from prison. Problems accrue. His partners in crime are neither smart nor reliable, and a woman named Marie (Ida Lupino) gets stuck on him to the detriment of both. There's even a dog with a record of bringing bad luck to his minders who attaches himself to Earle.All this works sometimes. It brings out a riveting performance from Bogart, whose ticks and melancholy spirit feel utterly right. You pull for him despite the fact he's not presented to us as anything other than a Hays Code baddie, even calling out one handler for being an retired policeman ("A copper's always a copper"). People talk about this being the beginning of film noir, and while Bogie previously played an anti- hero up against a bitter destiny in "Black Legion," this is really establishes that up-against-the-system vibe for later film use.The problem with the film is how much it plays things on the nose. Right from the start, Earle is established as a guy who likes his freedom when he directs his driver to make a stop at a nearby park. Asked if he's alright, he answers: "I will be, just as soon as I make sure grass is still green, and...trees are still growin'."Later, we watch Earle have a nightmare which amounts to a soliloquy, complete with him making punching motions in his sleep. Writers John Huston and W. R. Burnett, working from Burnett's novel, have the bones of a fine story, but clutter it too much with moments like this. A black character played by Willie Best is brought in to do some crosseyed servile shtick that comes over even more lame in such an otherwise serious flick.Then there's the sweet family with the pretty daughter Velma (Joan Leslie) whom Earle befriends, which slows down the heist story to a crawl. Earle sees in Velma reason for a clean start in life, but cruel circumstance works against him yet again. (Some reviewers here are aghast at the age gap between the middle-aged Bogart and the teenager Leslie. Better not tell them about her and Cagney the following year in "Yankee Doodle Dandy"!) The Velma arc just goes on too long, and plays like a bad joke.But even the weak moments are worthwhile with Bogie at the center of things. In the last scene with Velma, the weakest scene in the movie, there's a moment when Marie bursts in and Earle shoots her the most marvelously murderous look. It's pure Bogart.That's the best that can be said of "High Sierra." Lupino merits interest less for her performance, which is serviceable, but for the way her character is introduced and hangs on with Earle like a proto-Bonnie Parker. She shouldn't have been credited above Bogart, but the story is really as much about her character as his.It's also a treat having come off a Budd Boetticher kick to find myself back on his stomping grounds, Lone Pine and the Alabama Hills around Mount Whitney, served up this time in glorious black and white. The scenics by cinematographer Tony Gaudio impress even when they don't try to grab your attention, and give this pre-noir a deceptively sunny sheen."High Sierra" is worth recommending, to Bogie fans and noir enthusiasts especially. This isn't where it all began for the actor or the genre, but it's where it reached a new height, even if it would prove a mere stepping stone for things to come.