La Grande Évasion

*High Sierra* is almost excruciatingly important in the development of cinema, laying to bed the "gangster picture" of the 1930's while simultaneously giving birth to American film noir. Oh, and it made Humphrey Bogart a major star while it was at it. Therefore, I'm not entirely sure that your film collection, if you have one, can survive without it.

Based on a pulpy novel, it chronicles the story of Roy Earle, sprung from a life sentence in prison so that he can knock over a casino along the California-Nevada border. It's easy to miss, but notice the first minute of this picture closely: it's of course the Governor -- bought off by a mobster -- who gets Roy released from his life sentence, indicating that the corruption has finely infested the top of the social order. This is the usual tough-minded, whistle-blowing gangster-picture stuff that Warner Bros. specialized in. But there's also something else at work here, perhaps something new: one gets the sense that what happens to Roy in this movie has been engineered from On High, in advance . . . in other words, he's in the Jaws of Fate. And thus we're in the unforgiving world of Film Noir.

More than the opening scene, it's Bogart who almost single-handedly invents film noir with his groundbreaking work in *High Sierra*. Not cocky like Cagney and Muni, not psychopathic like the early Edward G. Robinson, not as smooth as Raft, Bogart is a ruthless professional with a wide stripe of sentimentality. His Roy never shirks from killing, but he doesn't get off on it. He's more a rebel than a gangster, a poetic soul denied respectability, a man longing for the innocence of his youth. Unfortunately, he thinks he finds in the personage of a transplanted Okie farm-girl (Joan Leslie) a reasonable facsimile of that innocence. Competing for his affections is Ida Lupino, a sour "dime-a-dance girl" who's been up, down, and around the block a time or three. She's the baggage that comes with the two new-generation hoods whom Bogart is assigned to babysit for the casino heist. Not until later in the picture does Bogart recognize Lupino's better suitability to his own temperament and experience. (They share in common, among other things, suicidal impulses, a desire to escape a corrupted world.)

Roy Earle was a new type of character -- the truly romantic criminal. Bogart would play variations on Earle throughout his career, though he rarely exceeded his triumph here. And while I've given the actor much of the credit, some more credit must be extended to the screenwriter, John Huston. *High Sierra* was the beginning of a beautiful friendship.

Oh, and did I mention that the movie -- aside from its importance in American film history, yadda yadda -- is quite simply a good time? Witty dialogue, great on-location direction by Raoul Walsh, a cute dog, and a climactic car chase that wouldn't be equaled until 1968's *Bullitt*, are just some of this movie's other virtues.

Bogey is picked to lead a jewel heist at a resort. When he meets the rag tag team he has to work with, he senses trouble brewing. This is the film that brought attention to Bogart's leading man skills and Huston's peerless writing. Many remember the classic ending with Bogart hiding out in the mountains for one final stand against the law (and fate). Ida Lupino is one of my favorite actresses from the 40's and does fine work here (and looks stunning). Many fine moments with Bogey...including a memorable speech within his cabin hideout. This is one of the best portraits of a desperate outlaw in film history. A blueprint for all the antihero films that would follow over the years...great fun! Seek it out and enjoy!

Humphrey Bogart's screen name in High Sierra is Roy 'Mad Dog' Earle. But it's clear from the outset that if Bogart is anything he's not crazy. Bogart may have been a wild guy in his youth, but he's now a middle-aged man who is fully aware that he can't do anything else, but continue in a life crime. He's got the resume and the reputation for that and nothing else. What else can he do, but accept an offer to crew chief a heist at an expensive resort hotel in Nevada.

He can't pick the men he'd like, they're probably all dead or in the joint. He gets some young punks assigned to him by Barton MacLane who is acting as a middleman for boss Donald MacBride out on the west coast. Bogey gets Alan Curtis, Arthur Kennedy, and an informant at the hotel, Cornel Wilde. Curtis and Kennedy are getting their hormones in overdrive over Ida Lupino.

On the way west Bogey meets up with a near do well family headed by Henry Travers and he starts crushing out on teenager Joan Leslie. They represent to him a simpler time before he took up crime as a living.

The first half of the film sets up the characters, the second part is the robbery and it's aftermath. In that second half High Sierra moves at a really good clip. Not too many went out for popcorn when it was shown in theaters back in the day.

High Sierra was one of three films that George Raft turned down and were given to Humphrey Bogart that established him as a leading man. The other two were The Maltese Falcon and Casablanca. Raft must have had some agent back in the day.

Of course Bogart is playing a gangster, but this one is a three dimensional character and a fine piece of work. It represented a big advance from some of the villains he played at Warner Brothers during the late Thirties.

High Sierra was directed by Raoul Walsh and another Hollywood icon director, John Huston, co-wrote the screenplay. There's a lot of similarity with this and Huston's later classic, The Asphalt Jungle.

High Sierra was remade twice, as a western with the miscast Joel McCrea in Bogart's role and in the Fifties as I Died a Thousand Times with Jack Palance. I daresay it could be made again quite easily for this generation, it's story is timeless.

For reasons unexplained you have been pardoned, after eight years behind bars you're still quite hardened, but there's a soft side you present, there's a kindness with intent, but there are times, when anger rages, and you're darkened. Old habits can be difficult to break, and so an offer of a caper you do take, driving down to California, meeting up with guys quite amateur, plus a lass who's called Marie, who's hard to shake. Naturally things don't go quite as you had hoped, as a gun is drawn and you feel your provoked, triggers pulled and bullets fly, public enemy, the bad guy, as you head into mountains, with quite steep slopes.

Even aside from its impact on Humphrey Bogart's career and on the noir genre, "High Sierra" is an entertaining and interesting movie that is worth seeing in its own right. Bogart's portrayal of Roy Earle, along with Ida Lupino, a talented supporting cast, and some well-chosen settings, are all fit together nicely to tell an interesting story.

Though it's hard now to experience Bogart's gangster roles as they would have appeared to their original audiences, it's still easy to see why this and similar roles attracted so much attention at the time. The character is interesting to begin with, and Bogart makes him even more so. The tension between Earle's ruthlessness and his sense of fairness, and between his desires and his practicality, makes for some interesting possibilities.

Bogart makes good use of these opportunities with his distinctive style. The other characters and the plot developments furnish plenty of material that develop Earle's character and give Bogart lots to work with. Even the sequences that might seem unlikely or out of place are used to add depth to the character and the story.

The climactic sequence in the mountains ties everything together nicely, in a very appropriate setting. "High Sierra" is the kind of movie that classic movie fans can enjoy both for the chance to see its influence on later movies and for its own interesting and well-crafted story.