No actor, male or female, has ever appeared in more top rank films than Humphrey Bogart. Most of these films are as watchable today as they were when they first appeared in the 1940s and 50s. Most were made during Hollywood’s Golden Age when the Studio system brought together under one roof outstanding directors, writers, cinematographers, and a whole host of other craftsmen and women to produce true works of art. The actors and actresses were of prime importance, none more so than Humphrey Bogart.
He first hit the spotlight in 1935 when he recreated his stage role as gangster Duke Mantee in The Petrified Forest. The stars were Leslie Howard, also recreating his leading man performance in Robert Sherwood’s play, and a young Bette Davis. Bogart turned in an unforgettable performance which unfortunately hurt his career since he would become typecast as a villain in popular gangster films.
It took five years for Bogart to break out of the mold in the ground-breaking 1941 film, High Sierra. Directed by Raoul Walsh, and written by John Huston, Bogart’s close friend, High Sierra marked the end of the traditional gangster film in that it attempted to humanize the criminal. It was Bogart’s first leading man role although he only got second billing to co-star Ida Lupino. Bogart plays Roy Earle, a notorious 1930s gangster who is pardoned after serving eight years in prison. The pardon had been arranged by his old gang boss who needs him to pull off one last big heist.
In the opening scene we see Bogart leaving the prison and basking in his freedom. He directs the driver sent to pick him up to stop at a nearby park so he can see if trees and grass still exist. He sits on a bench and enjoys the antics of little children playing ball. Our hearts go out to him. Only in the next scene when he picks up his assignment to drive to California and lead a robbery of a wealthy resort hotel do we see his tough guy demeanor emerge. He slaps around the corrupt cop who gives him his orders.
On the drive west he stops at the old Earle family farm in Indiana which has been taken over by bankers during the depression. His nostalgic love of the farm of his childhood is evident. He even directs a young boy to a favorite fishing spot. The criminal’s yearning for the idyllic countryside of childhood would be repeated in many films to come including John Huston’s The Asphalt Jungle.
Arriving in California, he accidentally makes the acquaintance of an elderly couple who have lost their Ohio farm and have travelled west to stay with their daughter. They are traveling with their pretty teen-age grand-daughter, played by the lovely Joan Leslie, who unfortunately has a club foot. In another sign of his humanity, Roy Earle shows real concern for the plight of the girl, and eventually falls for her. He arranges for an underworld doctor to perform an operation on the girl’s foot. In those days, it was apparently easy and inexpensive but when the girl is healed, she reveals that she is in love with another man. Earle is too old.
This rejection is just another sign among many that after eight years in prison, Roy Earle is out of touch in the world of 1940. The world that he knew has passed him by. Even modern hoodlums are not up to his standards. When he finally meets up with the two other members of the hold-up team, they are obviously young and inexperienced, and certainly lacking in toughness. They are even shacking up with an unfortunate ex-dime-a-dance girl played by Ida Lupino. Tough-guy Earle claims that women are poison in a heist, and orders them to get rid of her. But when she tells him her story, she appeals to his sympathies and he relents. He is a human being, flaws and all. He is a tough and capable criminal but with a soft spot in his heart. He even develops an affection for a mongrel dog at the camp, one of the great dogs in film history. Eventually, they pull off the heist but as usual in these films, things go wrong. ***
High Sierra marked Bogart’s first role as a sympathetic leading man, and established his persona as a tough guy with a hard exterior cloaking a soft, caring inside, a persona immediately evident in two subsequent iconic films, The Maltese Falcon (1941), and Casablanca(1942), that made him a huge star. Roy Earle, Sam Spade, and Rick Blaine were roles that it is now hard to imagine anyone playing but Humphrey Bogart.
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*** Note. A four minute video on Youtube shows a couple of typical scenes from High Sierra. Click on the link or view the video below.
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