High Sierra (1941, Raoul Walsh) (Patreon)

47/100

"Which is it, Bart? Mutt? Dames?"
"...Both, maybe?"

Unquestionably an important film, propelling Bogart from character actor to star and facilitating co-screenwriter John Huston's shift into directing (with The Maltese Falcon released a mere nine months later—they moved speedily back then). Apart from the visual splendor of its Mount Whitney finale, however, I found it surprisingly weak: perfunctory narrative, clichéd characters (though it's trying to do something interesting with one cliché; I'll get to that), extremely muddled themes. (Also the tough-to-stomach racism that generally attends any appearance by Willie Best, whose character is fairly prominent.) Bogart's tics start to coalesce into a persona here, but he's fighting the screenplay to a sizable degree (another way of saying that he's miscast), never very credible as a badass ex-con who seeks to make the fabled One Last Score so that he can buy back the family farm and spend the rest of his life communing with nature. Hell, for all that it was instrumental in boosting his popularity, High Sierra doesn't even really understand the fundamentally phlegmatic nature of Bogart's appeal—more than once, his Roy "Mad Dog" Earle actually yells "Come and get me, copper!", and Bogart just plain wasn't a "Come and get me, copper!" kinda guy. (Cagney very much was, which may be why White Heat is Walsh's zenith.) And it's not as if there's much going on to distract from these infelicities, as much of the movie consists of Earle babysitting two dumb goons while he awaits the go-ahead on what turns out to be a singularly ordinary hotel robbery; their occasional scraps don't amount to anything, and their exit from the movie is so unceremoniously convenient as to be laughable (which is to say, I guffawed, though that's partly because Walsh shoots the accident in a way that makes it appear as if whoever's driving—I forget whether it's Red or Babe—is trying to roll the car off the road, rather than struggling to avoid that outcome). 

Now, admittedly, I haven't yet so much as mentioned High Sierra's actual top-billed star, Ida Lupino. She does terrific work within the confines of this film's fascinating but miscalibrated subversion of what I'm gonna go ahead and call the good girl / bad girl dichotomy (they're both adults, but good woman / bad woman just clangs; maybe "gal" would work), which itself has to awkwardly share thematic real estate with the whole goofy cursed-pooch business. I'm inclined to ignore the latter, excepting a quick eye-roll at the scene in which Earle is tipped to a motel proprietor having learned his identity when the dude idiotically addresses Pard by name, having read it in the newspaper. Drugstore Cowboy's initially hilarious, eventually plangent hex arc ("Jesus, Bob, you never told us anything about...not mentioning dogs!") works because Bob believes deeply in hexes and makes poor decisions in an effort to avoid/defeat them; by contrast, it's High Sierra itself crediting Algernon's conviction that Pard brings bad luck. And that only serves to undermine Earle's fate as a product of his unexpected feelings for Marie, which are the movie's primary strength. Were this genuinely a story about someone gradually recognizing that the ostensibly pure, innocent (and disabled!) ingénue harbors inner ugliness, while the ostensibly fallen woman radiates every good and honorable quality, I'd be on board, schematic though that is. (At least it's schematic in reverse.) But we're apparently meant to be repulsed by Velma's lack of romantic interest in a man twice her age, and find her ungrateful because he paid for her operation and didn't get a wife in return. It's either that or Marie's legitimately a rebound fling, and Velma's final line ("You're just jealous and mean 'cause I don't want you. 'Cause I never wanted you"), while entirely accurate, plays as downright cruel (with Marie right there on his arm, no less, thanks to good ol' Bard). At the same time, Walsh does demonstrate some empathy for Velma earlier, shooting her tenderly when she cries on her father's shoulder following her rejection of Earle's marriage proposal. It's as if they collectively couldn't quite work out what they were doing with that character, just as they never quite decided upon whether 'twas beauty or the (equally adorable) beast that killed Earle. Spectacular locations in the final minutes, but that does not a classic make.