La peur au ventre

Roy Earle is a professional criminal--one of the toughest and best at his job. When he is unexpectedly released from prison, it is because someone big wanted a big heist and they pulled strings to get him. On his way to the location of his new partners up in the Sierras, he meets a very poor family and befriends them. He also later befriends a cute little dog. Both these acts of kindness are very atypical for such a hardened man and, sadly, BOTH end up causing him nothing but grief in the end.

I am a film purist when it comes to remakes. My opinion has always been that if the original film is great, it shouldn't be remade--remakes are only for films with SERIOUS flaws that can corrected in the remake. So, I am a VERY difficult sell for a film like "I Died a Thousand Times", as it's a remake both of the classic Bogart picture "High Sierra" as well as Joel McCrea's "Colorado Territory"==and both films have a higher IMDb rating as well.

"I Died a Thousand Times" turns out to be an extremely well made film--mostly because it is practically an exact copy of "High Sierra" and because Jack Palance was quite nice in the lead. The only major differences is the wonderful color film stock--it looks great because of the wonderful mountain locations. As for the acting, it's about on par with the original. So, if it offers no real major advantage, why not just see the original--especially since it stars Humphrey Bogart and Ida Lupino and is a classic. This 1955 version could have become a classic--if the story had been original. Good but see the original!

`Mad Dog' Earle is back, along with his sad-sack moll Marie, and that fickle clubfoot Velma. So are Babe and Red, Doc and Big Mac, and even the scenery-chewing mutt Pard. The only thing missing is a good reason for remaking Raoul Walsh's High Sierra 14 years later without rethinking a line or a frame, and doing so with talent noticeably a rung or two down the ladder from that in the original. (Instead of Walsh we get Stuart Heisler, for Humphrey Bogart we get Jack Palance, for Ida Lupino Shelley Winters, and so on down through the credits.) The only change is that, this time, instead of black-and-white, it's in Warnercolor; sadly, there are those who would count this an improvement.

I Died A Thousand Times may be unnecessary – and inferior – but at least it's not a travesty; the story still works on its own stagy terms. Earle (Palance), fresh out of the pen near Chicago, drives west to spearhead a big job masterminded by ailing kingpin Lon Chaney, Jr. – knocking over a post mountain resort. En route, he almost collides with a family of Oakies, when he's smitten with their granddaughter; the smiting holds even when he discovers she's lame. Arriving at the cabins where the rest of gang holes up, he finds amateurish hotheads at one another's throats as well as Winters, who throws herself at him (as does the pooch). Biding time until they get a call from their inside man at the hotel, Palance (to Winter's chagrin) offers to pay for an operation to cure the girl's deformity, a gesture that backfires. Then, the surgical strike against the resort turns into a bloodbath. On the lam, Palance moves higher into the cold Sierras....

It's an absorbing enough story, competently executed, that lacks the distinctiveness Walsh and his cast brought to it in 1941, the year Bogie, with this role and that of Sam Spade in the Maltese Falcon, became a star. And one last, heretical note: Those mountains do look gorgeous in color.

This is a remake of High Sierra with Humphrey Bogart and Ida Lapino. Not quite as good as the original, although it has obviously talented, and great actors. It makes you wonder why they would remake a classic like High Sierra with minimal changes just 14 years later. One interesting difference between the original and this movie... In High Sierra Willie Best plays a stereotypical comical black man (Algernon) in a servile role at the camp. The remake had a comical Hispanic (Chico) played by Pedro Gonzalez Gonzalez. Both are incredibly insulting by current standards. It makes you wonder about the changes in the culture from 1941 to 1955.

I Died a Thousand Times is directed by Stuart Heisler and adapted to screenplay by W.R. Burnett from his own novel High Sierrra. It stars Jack Palance, Shelley Winters, Lori Nelson, Lee Marvin, Pedro Gonzalez Gonzalez, Lon Chaney Junior and Earl Holliman. A CinemaScope/Warnercolor production, cinematography is by Ted McCord and music by David Buttolph.

It will always be debatable if remaking the excellent High Sierra (Raoul Walsh 1941) was needed or wanted by a 1950s audience? Especially since Walsh had himself already remade it as a great Western with 1949 film Colorado Territory, but taken on its own terms, with great production value and Burnett's personal adaptation taken into consideration, it's a very enjoyable film.

Set up is simple, it's one last heist for Roy "Mad Dog" Earle (Palance) before going straight, but as his attempts to break free from his emotional loner status fall apart, so does the heist and his future is written in blood right up there in the mountains. Heisler and Burnett put Earle up front for character inspection, easing in sympathetic tones whilst ensuring he remains a big physical threat. The air of fatalism is pungent enough and the finale is excitingly staged by Heisler. Cast performances are more than adequate if not comparing to the likes of Bogart and Lupino, while the Warnercolor is gorgeous and the photography around the Alabama Hills in Lone Pine is superb.

While not in the same league as High Sierra or Colorado Territory, that doesn't mean this is a wash out, more so if you haven't seen either of the Walsh movies. If you have, like me (High Sierra is one of my favourite Bogart performances), then comparisons and a feeling of deja vu will obviously infiltrate your viewing experience. That said, there is more than enough here to make it worth your time regardless of comparison and familiarities. 7/10

I love Shelley Winters in almost everything she does.

However she is miscast.

So miscast, in fact, it throws off Jack Palance's performance.

Jack is a master at snarling and showing contempt.

It is what we like about him as a King-Heavy.

Here though, in every scene he wants to punch her in the face.

He knows that we know he can do better than Shelley Winters.

We want him to.

Their lack of chemistry is a pall over the whole story.

Like I said: Love them both, just not together.