Nothing like classic noir when it comes to character-driven crime stories with shades of darkness and light so masterfully depicted as in in High Sierra (1941) by Raoul Walsh with two big names of the time – Humphrey Bogart and Ida Lupino.
Bogart plays the lead role of Roy Earle, convicted robber who receives a pardon from the Governor in Indiana so that he can be hired by Big Mac (Donald MacBride) to lead a heist at a resort hotel in the Sierra Nevada. Assisting him in the heist would be two men and a woman named Marie (Lupino) who escaped her life as an entertainer in Los Angeles.
Raoul Walsh adapted William R. Burnett’s novel into a noir with dramatic tension that climbs literally as the movie comes to a climax involving a car chase sequence in the Sierra Nevada mountain range. Both lead characters, Roy and Marie, are on the run from their past and are tilted one way or the other off the balance between the lit and dark shades of their respective past lives, not to mention the rot in the society where money buys everything, including a gubernatorial pardon.
The cinematic contrast featuring the sunlit peaks of Sierra against the caged spirit of Roy, desperate to “crash out,” adds to the impact of High Sierra. Noir characters are typically doomed, especially if they continue pursuing their helpless run from themselves. Roy’s fate is contrasted and balanced off by Marie who adopts the dog Pard (played by “Zero”) – unwittingly leading Roy to his impending doom. Take it as a spoiler or teaser as you wish!
High Sierra has a deep feel of tragedy arising out of the unfulfilled quest for freedom when one knows to have lost it already. More than a crime story, it speaks to the soul.
