With the notable exception of Casablanca, I find that Bogart films have dated badly. I watch as many noirs as I can, and too many of them are embarassing by modern standards. I appreciate that innocence and naivety are noir themes, but come on - in High Sierra we have Bogie fawning over a cute dog. At times it resembles an episode of Lassie.
The first Bogart film I saw was Casablanca, and it is as good as any movie I've ever seen. But Key Largo, the Big Sleep, the Maltese Falcon, High Sierra - they've all disappointed me. Does anyone agree? Which Bogie films have aged best?
I totally disagree! What are the modern standards??Box office films,all the same plot one way or another,that no one will remember after five years(with few exceptions of course) His films are ageless and unique :)
He wouldn't know a good movie if it hit him right in the teeth.
High Sierra is so well put together that it takes your breath away.
The level of the casting and the performance of the minor characters illustrates how different the level was in the days of real movies.
The two female leads were perfect for their parts---Ida Lupino was very sympathetic as Marie, Bogart's (second choice) girl, and Joan Leslie was ideally cast as the young girl, Velma.
Donald MacBride as Big Mac was perfect, as was Henry Travers as Pops, as well as the actor who played the crooked cop,
Cornel Wilde was very good as Mendoza. His accent and the way they had him made up fooled me completely. I didn’t know it was Cornel Wilde until I looked at the list of actors and their parts.
The two punks working with Bogart were just right too (Red and Babe).
W R Burnett, the author of the perfectly written crime novel, Little Caesar, wrote this movie, together with John Huston. The level of the writing and the knowledge of the crime world is evident throughout.
The story of Marie and way it developed throughout the movie was masterful. Her scene where she used the dog to go into the house to get a look at her rival Velma, her reaction in the scene in the car where Bogart says Velma is a “decent” girl, her comprehension of Bogart and who he was, made a terrific story.
The landscapes in this movie are breathtaking.
The close is one of the great scenes in all movies, with Marie holding the dog and saying, “Free! Free!” as the cops take her away-- and then the camera shot rising slowly to pan up the huge, massive mountain, to the peak at its top.
By the way, some of the roughest, nastiest people I have known loved dogs.
I love Bogart movies, even second tier ones (Dark Passage, They Drive by Night), but I just watched High Sierra today and it seemed to be both pretty weak, and not aging well.
It seems to be assembled from recycled unoriginal stuff. We get the bathos of the girl who needs a new set of ankles, comically dated car-chases, etc. As soon as they let the dog in the car I groaned, anticipating the whole plot.
If you don't like my comments, all I can is "Come and get me, coppers!"
Actually I thought this movie was pretty good.. It shows the gangster Bogie and the Soft Bogie...From caring and nice, to ticked off..
Dated ? What else can you say about a movie 60 years old.. Sure its dated.. But when it came out it was a top notch movie.. Bogies first real headline movie..
I loved this movie, as I have all of his movies.. Some are certainly better than others, but the man could act.. He didnt invent the tough guy role, but he perfected it and took it out of the stale 30s age and reinvented it for the 40s-50s.
I like all kinds of films, old and new, I have over 900 DVDs..most of the top 100 movies of all time, watched them all, and Bogie is by far the best tough guy of them all..ALl current tough guys owe their acting style to him, and he didnt need pretty boy sissy Tom Cruise looks to do it..
I can hardly watch a Tom Cruise, Brad Pitt, George Clooney movie because theyre so sissy-like compared to Bogey..
This film certainly is dated!!! When Bogert fills up a tank of gas and hands the man a $5 he give him $3 dollars change back. Boy do they smoke to much in those movies!!!
See if you can get your hands on some of your families home movies from the '50s. You almost can't see your relatives because there is so much smoke in the air.
For one of Bogie's rare comedies, try "We're No Angels," especially if you can watch it at Christmas time. I think it's funnier every time I see it, although it was very obviously adapted from a stage play.
"The Maltese Falcon" and "The African Queen" are still great, IMHO. I still don't get "The Big Sleep."
Nobody gets The Big Sleep; it doesn't matter. It's all character, mood and chemistry. I've watched that movie so many times I remember half the dialogue - and what dialogue!
Those movies you've mentioned have aged very well, though I'm not a fan of The Big Sleep. The direction, script, and performances in those movies are as sharp as when first released. Perhaps they aren't your kind of movies.
If you haven't seen them yet, check out To Have and Have Not, The Caine Mutiny, The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, and In a Lonely Place. Those four are among the cream of the crop for Bogie. Maybe they will change your mind about Bogie and his films.
I'll look out for them. I think Bogart's a great actor, and Casablanca is as good as any film I've ever seen. But Key Largo and High Sierra - they're frankly embarassing, to modern tastes.
Knocking films that are sixty and seventy yewrs old is pretty foolish. Forget the smoking and clothes and cars and try to see what is really there. Anyone who can't see High Sierra except through the prisms of PC and sexism is rather obtuse. It is called lack of historical perspective. Key Largo, in the context of Post WW II, makes perfect sense, as an update of a rather preachy anti-war play (Robt. Sherwood). If it is a bit naive in equating fascism and gangsterism, it makes perfect sense in context. Then again, consider Mitt Romney or the Bush family in the context of international gangsterism as the root of all evil. Maybe it isn't so naive after all. I seriously doubt that anyone will be watching the noirs of today even five years from now, much less sixty. Howard Roller
If modern standards prevent you from enjoying High Sierra, ditch the modern standards. What could they be worth, anyway?
Maybe these modern standards just don't like good acting. Ida Lupino is dynamite here. And Key Largo? How about Lionel Barrymore, Edward G. Robinson, and the Oscar-winning Claire Trevor? It's tense and action-packed. What's not to love?
The Maltese Falcon is just ridiculous to mention here- it's aged better than most recent movies. It's just plain great.
I'll admit High Sierra was a little more laid-back than some of Bogey's later work. His character actually got to enjoy himself for a time here, and he even got to find a place where he belonged, in a surrogate family with Marie and Pard. But that was more than made up for with the gloomy ending where (after his rejection by Velma) all of it falls apart.
And regardless of the movies themselves, Bogart's been dead for fifty years and he hasn't aged a day. He's still just as fresh, rebellious, and cool as ever was.
Nothing dated about great films or great art of any kind. Just because he is driving a 1938 plymouth doesn't mean the story loses it's value.
Looking at those great gangster films from this period i see many similarities to the sopranos aside from the nudity and foul language. The story is engaging and the acting is first rate.
re--OP-- The dog Pard (aka 'Zero) belonged to Bogie in real life. No actor who ever appeared with Lassie actually owned the pooch. So the love there is true!
If you feel the genre is 'embarassing by todays' standards--so what did we have in 2007--LiLohan pole-dancing in a movie that would gag a maggot.
Bogart was paid on an annual basis, not per-picture. So he was under contract by Warners to crank out so many per year. Yes a few were mediocre, but certainly not this one. Even in the few forgettable movies he made one is still seeing a true legend at work.
In High Sierra we have a sympathetic character who in order to escape those hunting him goes to the highest place around--Mt Whitney. Sort of a human King Kong, which was released just 9 years prior.
My sentiments exactly. And may the memory of Bogie live on and on. Hey--they don't issue postage stamps to chimps, ya gotta rate (and be dead) to get that additional immortality.
Quite simply--there will never be another one like him---J. Huston at the HB funeral Jan 1957
I'm a Philistine, am I? I'm afraid your assumption that I don't like old films and that I'm a fan of modern mass-market cinema is wide of the mark, friend. My favourite film was made in 1950. My second favourite is from the 1930s. Both are European films. I prefer British, French and Italian movies to American ones, on the whole. I have never visited a multiplex in my life and I don't watch TV at all.
Those of you who have popped up to slag me off have revealed yoursevles to be both intolerant and, frankly, a bit thick. You don't think it's possible for some mid-20th C movies to have dated more badly than others? You don't think it's legitimate for someone else to hold a different opinion to you on a 'great' movie? Then I suggest you hold back before calling anyone else a Philistine and have a look at yourselves first.
Just a quick response to your original post (in which you did ask "Does anyone agree?)
I was lucky enough to see The Maltese Falcon (one of your stated "disappointments") in a CA theater in the 1990s with a nearly packed (and predominantly youthful) house, and to my surprise and enjoyment the audience was fully into the movie from start to finish. They laughed, cheered, and were held in seemingly breathless suspense at all of the appropriate moments of the film, and they applauded quite enthusiastically at the end.
It did my heart good to discover that such a "modern" audience still enjoyed one of my favorite HB classics so thoroughly. I've always felt that TMF is one of the few nearly perfect films to exist. It's tightly shot, directed, and edited, and the story follows the original Hammett novel quite faithfully, even to the point of accurate set decoration. I have no doubt that TMF will still be thrilling audiences a hundred years from now.
(Oddly enough, the most surprising aspect of my noir evening was that approximately 90% of the audience left after Maltese ended, even though it was the first half of a well-publicized double feature. The second film on the bill was The Grifters, and we brave souls who decided to stay for the second show received much more than our money's worth from such a rip-roaring uber-noir movie, which owes much to Dashiell Hammett, John Huston, Humphrey Bogart, and TMF for inspiration. Scheduling such a double feature was ingenious on someone's part.)
Anyway, while I never stoop to personal insults on IMDb boards, you might have expected some heated responses to your original post, since it was made on a board dedicated to such a well-regarded and still very entertaining film as High Sierra.
I am often pleasantly surprised at how well many vintage films, even silents, still hold up as satisfying modern entertainment. Many of the brains behind (and in front of) those cameras were quite perceptive in expressing human truths that are still relatable many decades later.
There's a difference between a heated response and one that's just flat-out rude. Too many of the replies here have fallen into the latter category rather than the former.
I completely disagree in regards to Bogart movies like Maltese Falcon, Big Sleep, Key Largo, etc. Those are all awesome classics that hold up fine to this day.
However, High Sierra? Just never been one of my favorites. Bogey is too soft in this film, almost as if he's desperate to be a mainstream lead. I do agree that he fawns over the dog, over Joan Leslie, etc.
I disagree with the OP, I've never seen a Bogie film that was weak or dated. Human emotion is timeless and these movies contain fleshed out characters. You can see what Bogie is feeling from the emotional range of his expressions.
Back then we had actors who could act. Now we have actors (not all actors) who react (to special effects).
There were no giant robots or explosions or CGI(shudder)people had to carry movies with their skill, and Bogie was among the greats and always will be.
Some other recommendations for Bogart fans:
Dead End All Through the Night The Petrified Forest
Do you understand the words that I am saying to you?
It's a little childish to call someone a "halfwit" because they don't respond to the same emotional cues you do. I think the original poster made a valid point. The best thing about this movie IS Humphrey Bogart - his performance as "Mad Dog" Earl is tough yet vulnerable, timeless and magnificant. However, I found the soap operaish subplot about the clubfoot girl a little ludicrous - I actually laughed at the scene where she sobs "I don't love him!" Her acting is very hammy and dated. This is also the only classic noir movie I have seen that I thought would have looked better in color - I know it's heresy, but all that mountain scenery! Some of my favorite movies are from the 30's and 40's, but to put older movies on a pedestal and treat them as beyond criticism is intellectually dishonest, shallow, and yes, "halfwitted."
...I'm beginning to notice that every classic film/actor board I've been to has at least one thread debunking it or them. And now I'm finding "High Sierra" to be no exception, the victim of yet another nitpicking by someone who's sold on the belief that "modern movies are where it's at, man; but it's okay to throw a bone at some of the better-made 'oldies,' as long as you make it clear that any example of a superior 'oldie' is only good 'for an old flick!'"
Let's not waste any more breath debating the OP. We've discussed HS's merits here, already, and if it ain't good enough for him, let him go back to watching his preferred foreign flicks...
"This is also the only classic noir movie I have seen that I thought would have looked better in color - I know it's heresy, but all that mountain scenery!"
I know what you mean, but check out the (B&W) photography of the great Ansel Adams.