Noir November: High Sierra
Written by Cameron Geiser
Every day for the month of November, Cameron Geiser is reviewing a noir film (classic or neo) for Noir November. Today covers the 1941 noir influence High Sierra.
Released in January of 1941, a full nine months before The Maltese Falcon, I’ve included High Sierra in Noir November because it marks the evolution within Hollywood Crime films from the hugely popular gritty gangster films of the last decade to the more ambiguous and nuanced burgeoning genre that is Noir. This is a film that’s firmly wedged between the Gangster and Noir eras of cinematic history in America. While the romantic fatalism so entwined with the best of the 40’s Noirs is blossoming, it doesn’t have quite the power over the characters that later films would focus on. Though chief among all other reasons to include this film is that of Humphrey Bogart’s performance as Roy “Mad Dog” Earle, a gangster that ran with John Dillinger’s mob and got to spend some time behind bars for doing so. His release in the film’s opening isn’t out of the kindness of any Warden or Politician’s heart mind you. His freedom from prison just pushed him from one set of masters to another in the form of “Big Mac”, an elder gangster looking to land one last heist.
The screenplay gives the characters and story structure something that pops with a bit more flair than some of the more traditional gangster flicks that preceded it. Which makes a lot of sense as it was co-written by John Huston and the author of the novel, William R. Burnett who had prior experience in adapting his work for Hollywood. Huston became fast friends and drinking buddies with Bogart in the process of adapting this film, establishing the foundation of their collaborative relationship that would produce films like The Treasure of Sierra Madre and The African Queen, Bogart’s sole Academy Award winning performance. You can also see similarities in Huston’s later work in The Asphalt Jungle in regard to that film’s main character Dix Handley (Sterling Hayden). Both Dix Handley and Roy Earle are depicted as once innocent country boys who went down the wrong path. Though that notion is more skillfully expanded on in The Asphalt Jungle than here.
Humphrey Bogart and Ida Lupino in High Sierra.
So, as for the actual plot of High Sierra, it’s got criminals with a clear goal, robbing a Hotel in a swanky resort town in California. However once Roy meets the other, younger, members of the crew that he’s to work with, he becomes suspicious of their abilities. It’s a small crew with Babe (Alan Curtis), Red (Arthur Kennedy), and Babe’s girlfriend Marie (Ida Lupino). They also have an inside man, Mendoza (Cornel Wilde), a clerk at the Hotel. There’s a bit of a sluggish side story where Roy witnesses a car crash involving Ma (Elisabeth Risdon) and Pa Goodhue (Henry Travers) and their granddaughter Velma (Joan Leslie), a beautiful young woman who captures the attention of Roy almost immediately. Velma limps away from the small car wreck and when Roy inquires if she’s okay, which she reveals that she’s only doing so due to her club foot. Overly enamored with Velma, Roy pays for her corrective surgery and asks for her hand in marriage later- which is quickly shot down by Velma- who happens to be engaged. There’s some mildly interesting scenes when the heist goes wrong, there’s also a small dog named Pard, often bandied about to be a harbinger of bad luck, that becomes attached to Roy just as Marie does- both of whom Roy seems mostly ambivalent about.
High Sierra has its place in film history, it helped solidify Humphrey Bogart as a leading man and the pre-production helped foster a great working relationship between Bogart and Huston. While the film’s more conventional direction and lack of low key lighting and shadow work keep it from achieving a moodier atmosphere and greater sense of mystery, John Huston’s screenplay and the performances from Bogart and Ida Lupino in particular keep everything buoyant enough to stay above water.
Cameron Geiser is an avid consumer of films and books about filmmakers. He'll watch any film at least once, and can usually be spotted at the annual Traverse City Film Festival in Northern Michigan. He also writes about film over at www.spacecortezwrites.com.