"High Sierra" was the film that changed the course of Bogart's career and lifted him up to stardom
As Earle, Bogart was expanding on the criminal characterization he had already mastered in a dozen earlier films, giving it greater depth by adding contrasting elements of warmth and compassion to compensate the dominant violence
Bogart helps a clubfooted girl, Velma (Joan Leslie), who repays him only with disregard and indifference
Bogart's interpretation already showed signs of the special qualities that were to become an important part of his mystique in a few more films
Here, for the first time, was the human being outside society's laws who had his own private sense of loyalty, integrity, and honor
Bogart's performance turns "High Sierra" into an elegiac film
As a film, "High Sierra" has other notable qualities, particularly Ida Lupino's strong and moving performance as Marie, the girl who brings out Roy Earle's more human emotions
The movie was remade as a Western, "Colorado Territory," with Joel McCrea and Virginia Mayo, and as a crime film in "I Died a Thousand Times," with Jack Palance and Shelley Winters in the Bogart and Lupino roles
Neither came up to the stylish treatment given "High Sierra" by director Raoul Walsh from an exceptionally good script by John Huston and W. R. Burnett
