Format: DVD from Northern Illinois University Founders Memorial Library on kick-ass portable DVD player.
Confession time—until I actually saw the cover of the DVD case, I thought High Sierra was a Western. Really, with that title, who could blame me? It’s not a Western, of course. It’s a film noir starring Humphrey Bogart, who continues to find ways to remind me just how much I like watching him in classic films. That said, I’m not sure just how good High Sierra is when compared with other noirs that seem to have a lot more going for them. I mean, Bogart certainly counts for something, but he can’t count for everything, can he?
Criminal Roy Earle (Bogart) is given a pardon and released from prison for reasons unknown to him at first. As it turns out, a former criminal pal called Big Mac (Donald MacBride) is planning a high-stakes caper at a resort and wants Earle to run the show. The idea is that they will break into the resort and steal everything from the safety deposit boxes—lots of jewelry, mostly. The score should be big, and as an added benefit, there’s a man on the inside helping them out. Should be a cinch. So Earle drives out west from Chicago to get ready to perform the job. On the way, he befriends a family heading west. It’s an older couple (Henry Travers and Elisabeth Risdon) and their granddaughter, the attractive but partly crippled Velma (Joan Leslie). Earle takes a shine to Velma immediately and decides that he’ll do what he can to help the family and to see if he can’t get Velma’s club foot surgically repaired. Yeah, this is actually a pretty major plot point.
