High Sierra (1941)

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1. 

   TomServo

   Okay, does ANYBODY here like this movie? Because I just watched it and think it's probably one of my favorite Humphrey Bogart films now. It's not as classy as Casablanca, not as poetic as In a Lonely Place, and not as brawny as Treasure of the Sierra Madre, but it totally holds its own among them. The finale, which Martin Scorsese first introduced me to, is absolutely brilliant. 6 years 10 months ago
2. 

   Neville

   It's easy to judge harshly from where we are, but historically at least this movie marked a couple of important steps, including establishing Bogart as a leading man and spawning several remakes both as a gangster flick and a Western. 11 years 2 months ago
3. 

   Siskoid

   A bleak but thoughtful noir, High Sierra is the film that made a star out of Bogart, pitching him into similar complicated anti-hero parts from this point on. The film basically draws a distinction between the criminal and the man, giving Bogart's Roy Earle an essential decency that is at odds with his profession. The two sides of the coin are exemplified in two women. On the light side, we have an old farmer's family Roy helps out, including the sweet granddaughter Roy might want to marry. Joan Leslie is just AWFUL in the role, which is my only real problem with the film, but in terms of story, she's part of Roy's quest for purity (which is of course going to fall apart). On the dark side, Roy's partners in crime are untrustworthy young toughs fighting over Ida Lupino, a woman whose love may well doom him. And then there's the dog who may or may not be a curse to those it bonds with, a nice pettable portent of disaster through the course of the film. High Sierra asks questions about the possibly intermixing of light and dark, whether the dark contaminates the light (Roy's quest for purity is thus self-defeating), or whether a good thing (Lupino's love, or the dog's) acts like anti-matter on matter in a bad life. Once you pick that lane, you're doing life. 2 years 6 months ago

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