Anyone not care for this movie?

I don't know. Did you just watch it on TCM?

"When you're slapped, you'll take it and like it." - Sam Spade

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My first time with a post by Ren-28.

It seemed very stiff to me. Just chucked that up to Ren's style. Maybe he rushed the post--not enough time taken to think it out, maybe a first draft. Maybe Ren was in a rush to get it posted.

I can't help but wonder how different it would have been if the writing were in the hands of another.

The bright spot in the post was that it wasn't very long.

I agree with Ren and Strangelove. High Sierra is a bit of a turkey. Lots of noirs seem to have dated badly, but are worth the effort. This one must have been a dud in its own day. The only merit I can find in the film is the usual charismatic performance from Bogart. But his character, like all the others, is one-dimensional. The biggest problem is the plot. It's simplistic, predictable and formulaic. I find it incredible that it was written by the great John Huston.

Humphrey Bogart is my favorite actor of all time. I have been attempting to see more of the films I have not previously seen, such as The Left Hand of God, Sahara and some others. Of course I also have continued watching the greats, my favorites, as well. High Sierra I am afraid to say is neither - I have seen it before, but watching it again twice this past couple of months, I just cannot put it into Bogart's pantheon.

Yes, a great performance by him. Ida Lupino is also excellent. So is the whole rest of the cast, especially the second tier of the cast, from Cornel Wilde to Donald MacBride to Joan Leslie to Henry Travers. Henry Hull is particuarly excellent as the doc. And most of the film is well written, at leats in part by the great John Huston. I particularly loved the narrative arc of the development of Lupino's character as Roy fell in love with her.

I think most viewers, as I do, particularly find the way Leslie's character and Lupino's in effect trade places as the "good girl" - a rather sophisticated and compelling twist.

So what is the problem?

As the film approaches the end, I just cannot get out of my head that I have no patience for this standard formulaic way in which the gangster just has to get killed in the end. I know the production codes did not allow for criminals to get away, even "good" criminals like Robert Mitchum's character in the great Out of the Past, with Jane Greer (who of course was NOT a good criminal!). Perhaps Out of the Past was a somewhat better candidate for deviating from the line established by the code, but High Sierra is another one. It just seems gratuitous that they failed to get away.

And ftr I am hardly someone who insists on happy endings, and no doubt some would even argue with the notion that criminals getting away could be considered a happy ending in the first place - the irony. but taht is my point - it just seemed contrived to end it as it did. On top of that and perhaps due to my lack of patience with the narrative's arc, I also find the ending to drag.

So it does end with that last bit of great acting by Ida Lupino, who btw is one of Bogart's better chemistry female leads. That's great, but it does not overcome my objection to the film.