People are voting emotionally.

The movie turns out to be a little better than the average. Starting from a romantic formula often seen in the cinema, it ends in the most predictable (and somewhat bland) way.

I think this is a new genre that they're all sort of working their way through it and haven't got all the kinks worked out yet but it's a genre that works for me.

It's simply great fun, a winsome film and an occasionally over-the-top luxury fantasy that never flags.

" . . . 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.

"High Sierra" is an early example of film noir and is sometimes cited as the film which made a major star of Humphrey Bogart. It was co-written by Bogart's friend John Huston, who later in the same year (1941) would direct him in "The Maltese Falcon". In most of Bogart's films noirs, including "The Maltese Falcon", "Dead Reckoning" and "The Big Sleep" he played the hero, albeit often a flawed hero, but here he plays the villain. The film opens with Bogart's character, a convicted bank robber named Roy Earle, being released from jail after being pardoned by the State Governor. This does not mean, however. that Roy has been the victim of a miscarriage of justice or that he is now a reformed character. Far from it. His release has been engineered by a gangster named Big Mac, to whom the corrupt Governor owes a political favour. Big Mac (a name which in the forties presumably did not carry the associations with hamburgers which it would today) wants Roy to carry out a robbery for him at an exclusive holiday resort in the Sierra Nevada of California. (Hence the title). In form the film is a "heist movie" comparable to something like "The Concrete Jungle". It shows how Roy and his associates go about planning and carrying out the crime, concentrating more on the villains than it does on the police pursuing them. These being the days of the Production Code, however, when film-makers were forbidden from showing criminals succeeding in their enterprises, it also tells the story of how the robbery goes wrong and how Roy is forced to take refuge in the mountains. Film noir was a genre often noted for its tone of moral ambiguity, and I said earlier that some of Bogart's other roles involved him playing flawed heroes. Here, there is another sort of moral ambiguity about his character. On the one hand Roy is a dangerous criminal; he has no compunction about shooting dead a security guard who attempts to foil the robbery, displaying the ruthlessness which is to earn him the nickname "Mad Dog". , On the other hand, he also has certain qualities which, in another context, could have been admirable ones. He has a professional pride which leads him to be meticulous about planning his crimes, whereas his partners can be careless and slapdash. (He loathes the "Mad Dog" nickname, believing that it denotes someone wild and out of control). He has a code of ethics which leads him to turn down an opportunity to double-cross his associates. (But woe betide anyone who tries to double-cross Roy!) At one point in the film he pretends to be a successful businessman, and it is easy to imagine that, under different circumstances, this is what he could have become. The strangest side of Roy's nature is shown in his relationship with Velma, a young woman with a deformed foot whom he meets while planning the robbery. Taking pity on the girl, and knowing that her family are too poor to pay for corrective surgery, Roy pays for it himself. He does so in the hope that the otherwise attractive Velma will marry him afterwards, but never makes this a condition of paying for her surgery. (In the event, Velma turns him down, but for reasons unconnected with his criminal career, of which she remains ignorant). It is easy to see why this film made Bogart a star, as he gives one of the finest performances of his career, bringing out all sides of Roy's complicated personality, not only his ruthlessness, but also his better qualities, to such an extent that, even during the climactic final scenes of the manhunt on Mount Whitney, we can feel a certain sympathy with him. There are also good supporting performances from the two main female players, Joan Leslie as Velma and Ida Lupino as Marie, the sluttish moll who becomes Roy's lover after his rejection by Velma. The personalities of the two women are sharply contrasted. Velma can be seen as representing the respectable life of domesticity which Roy hopes to retire to after pulling off one last big job which will keep him for the rest of his life, while Marie represents Roy's actual life as it is at present. The film is also notable for its extensive location shooting, especially as it was made in the early forties, a period when most films were shot indoors in a studio. Raoul Walsh's black-and-white photography of the California sierras is very different to the gritty, urban look of most films noirs, but it lends the film a certain epic grandeur. It is the sort of film Ansel Adams might have made had he taken up film-making as well as landscape photography. Huston's script, co-written with William Burnett, is a powerful and intelligent one. This combination of acting, direction and writing makes "High Sierra" one of the great classic noirs, worthy to tank alongside the likes of "White Heat" (also made by Walsh), "Double Indemnity" and "Pickup on South Street". 9/10

Raoul Walsh directed this tense thriller that stars Humphrey Bogart as Roy Earle, nicknamed 'Mad Dog' in his youth, but who has now calmed down. After he gets out of prison, he is enlisted by his former employer to crew chief two inexperienced crooks(played by Alan Curtis and Arthur Kennedy) which he resents, but goes along with it. They plan to rob a rich hotel resort in Nevada, but along the way lonely Roy helps a crippled girl named Velma(played by Joan Leslie) get an operation to correct her physical impediment. She is grateful, but Roy is too old for her, and he leaves, but does find love with Marie(played by Ida Lupino) who loves him despite his doomed fate, as the heist goes wrong, and Roy finds himself on the run, until they get to the Sierra Nevada mountains... Well-filmed on location, exciting story of a doomed man whom time has passed by was Bogart's breakout role to leading man status.

I was always interested to see the film that made the leading character actor of Casablanca and The African Queen a star, and it seems it was this one that I found listed in the book 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die, from writer John Huston (The Man Who Would Be King). Basically Roy 'Mad Dog' Earle (Humphrey Bogart) has just been pardoned and released from an eastern prison, but the experienced bank robber is wanted by aged gangster Big Mac (Donald MacBride) to lead and take charge of a California resort casino heist. He starts by driving across the country, meeting the three men that will assist him in the heist at a camp in the mountains, they are resort worker Louis Mendoza (Cornel Wilde), and camp residents 'Red' (Arthur Kennedy), and they are also joined by young woman Marie (Ida Lupino), who after argument is eventually allowed to stay. Marie falls in love with Roy, but he does show any of the same feelings, he instead has affection for young woman Velma (Joan Leslie) who he pays to have an operation on her deformed foot, but she refuses a marriage proposal because she is seeing someone else, so when her fiancé shows up he does turn to Marie and they become lovers. All the plans for the robbery are made and they go ahead with the heist, but they are interrupted by a security guard and it goes wrong, the three assistants ends up in a car accident, Red and Babe are killed, and the police interrogate Mendoza. The police put a search out for 'Mad Dog' for the public to identify and catch him, Roy and Marie leave town together, but they separate so she can get away, and he hides in the Sierra Mountains. It is sunrise when the police catch up to Roy, and he tries to shoot the officers below, and it is when he hears Marie calling for him that they get the chance to shoot him, and they do and he falls to his death, while she sobs and is driven away. Also starring Henry Hull as 'Doc' Banton, It's a Wonderful Life's Henry Travers as Pa and Elisabeth Risdon as Ma. Bogart is usually the charming good guy, here he is a likable criminal, I can see reasons why he became more popular following this film, the film itself does have a bit of cheesy feel and corny story, there could have been a bit more heist action, but it is I suppose paced alright and a not bad crime thriller. Worth watching!