High Sierra
Directed by Raoul Walsh
Written by John Huston and W.R. Burnett based on a novel by W.R. Burnett
1941/USA
Warner Bros.
Repeat viewing/Netflix rental
#154 of 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die
[box] Roy Earle: Of all the 14 karat saps… starting out on a caper with a woman and a dog.[/box]
Humphrey Bogart, while still a gangster, was given an opportunity to show his true range and the rest is history. For me, this is a genius portrayal in a pretty iffy story.
Roy Earle (Bogart) is given an early parole from prison and goes immediately to the side of an associate who wants him to organize a jewel heist. He goes to the Sierra cabin of the men who have been chosen to help him, Red and Babe (Arthur Kennedy and Alan Curtis) and Babe’s girlfriend Marie (Ida Lupino). There’s also the dog Pard who has seen every person he has gotten close to die. Somewhat unwillingly, Earle acquires Pard and Marie, who exhibits a kind of dog-like devotion.
In the meantime, Earle had first saved an impoverished family from a car accident and then on their improbable re-acquaintance helps them out financially. “Pa” (Henry Travers) is deeply grateful and treats Earle like some kind of royalty. He falls hopelessly in love with crippled granddaughter Velma (Joan Leslie), despite a warning that she is love with someone from back home, and stakes her to an operation to fix her club foot.
This being 1941, everything that possibly can go wrong for Earle does go wrong and he ends up holed up on a mountain ledge basically waiting for the cops to shoot him down.
The story has a definite noir flavor with its doomed anti-hero and femme fatale but has way too many coincidences for my taste. This is not to sell short Bogart’s fine performance which gives the hardened convict he plays a kind of desperation and pathos that makes him deeply sympathetic. This was the last time he would receive second billing (under Lupino).
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