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Trust Weighted
Very Good
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66Trust Points
Wick's Review
Summary - Very Good 3.5
High Sierra remains a very entertaining movie some sixty years after it made Humphrey Bogart a star. In many ways it set the template for future antihero movies made in realistic settings. But never mind that. With Bogie at his best, working from a script written by John Huston and W.R. Burnett, and a conclusion literally filmed high up in California’s Sierra Nevada mountains, High Sierra is more than a museum piece.
Acting - Very Good 3.5
Humphrey Bogart campaigned for the role of “Mad Dog” Earle, his first time as a headliner, and then turned in an inimitable Bogie performance. Grimacing, taciturn, but with an underlying humanity, he jumps offscreen as a middle-aged man who knows the high stakes of his life choices. Nobody did it better.
Ida Lupino matches up well with him as a dime-a-dance girl who sees her main chance and wants to take it. That said, her’s is hardly an inimitable performance.
Alan Curtis & Arthur Kennedy are suitably knuckle-headed as a couple of hired thugs.
Joan Leslie is affecting as a crippled girl who Bogie falls for, while Henry Travers is delightful as her Pa.
Cornel Wilde jumps off screen in a bit part as a corrupt hotel clerk.
Male Stars - Really Great 4.5
BogieFemale Stars - Very Good 3.5
Female Costars - Good 3.0
Male Costars - Good 3.0
Film - Great 4.0
The star of High Sierra may have been unproven, but its behind-the-camera talents were anything but. Raoul Walsh, W.R. Burnett and John Huston were legendary stalwarts of Hollywood’s Golden Age.
Their film has a satisfyingly realistic feel to it, largely due to its then-unusual location shooting, famously including the concluding manhunt located above Lone Pine, California, on the slopes of Mt. Whitney.
Direction - Great 4.0
Raoul Walsh directed 132 movies over five decades, with crime dramas a particular specialty.Dialogue - Great 4.0
W.R. Burnett wrote the eponymous novel, from which he and John Huston adapted the screenplay. Huston and Bogart became fast friends and drinking buddies during filming, leading to a partnership that began with "The Maltese Falcon":http://www.viewguide.com/movies/365259-the-maltese-falcon later the same year and went on to include "The Treasure of the Sierra Madre":http://www.viewguide.com/movie_reviews/3194-the-treasure-of-the-sierra-madre and "The African Queen":http://www.viewguide.com/movie_reviews/1194-the-african-queen.Music - Very Good 3.5
Visuals - Great 4.0
Edge - Risqué 1.8
Sex Innocent 1.4
Violence Fierce 2.3
Rudeness Salty 1.6
Reality - Glib 1.3
High Sierra is markedly realistic compared to most contemporary crime dramas, as was standard during Hollywood’s Golden Age.
A more interesting comparison is how people thought about medical care then and now. The movie has a subplot about a girl with a deformed foot, which she lived with into adulthood. Her family was poor, so she had no prospect of getting it fixed, a situation she and they stoically accepted. This being a movie, a benefactor came along, but my how times have changed.