Review #1,289: 'High Sierra' (1941)

It may be difficult to believe now, but there was once a time when Hollywood icon Humphrey Bogart played second-fiddle to a bigger star, usually lumped with the role of deadbeat gangster or short-fused psychopath. In movies like Angels with Dirty Faces, The Roaring Twenties and this, High Sierra, he find-tuned himself into the fast-talking leading man he would later become in the likes of The Maltese Falcon, Casablanca and The Treasure of the Sierra Madre. With High Sierra, his name appeared below that of the magnificent Ida Lupino, but the film starts and ends with Bogart, and he appears in near enough every scene. He plays Roy 'Mad Dog' Earle, a career criminal freshly sprung from prison who soon realises that his generation of the respectable, honourable gangster is quickly dying out.

After serving eight years for armed robbery, Roy receives a governor's pardon arranged by his old boss Big Mac (Donald MacBride). He is to use his experience and expertise to oversee a heist of a swanky new Californian resort hotel, and heads into the country to hook up with his new crew. On his way into the mountains, Roy meets the young and pretty Velma (Joan Leslie), and decides to use the money stolen from the hotel to pay for an operation to correct her clubfoot, and win her affections in the process. Only his new team-mates Red (Arthur Kennedy) and Babe (Alan Curtis) are young, brash and green, and inside man Mendoza (Cornel Wilde) can't be trusted to keep his mouth shut. The only saving grace is Babe's sort-of girlfriend Marie (Lupino), who seems to be the only one of Roy's new rag-tag gang of thieves who can be trusted. She falls in love with the old-school Roy, and after the robbery naturally goes wrong when somebody gets shot, the two must flee into the hills and live as fugitives.

Director Raoul Walsh, working with a script by John Huston and W.R. Burnett, seems to have believed that both the gangster and the gangster movie were slowly dying out back in 1941. This isn't true of course, as gangster films are just as popular today as they have ever been, but this air of melancholy helps distinguish High Sierra from the countless other genre pictures of the era. Lupino and Bogart are both superb as the damaged, lonely criminals. Roy has his heart set on the younger Velma, who represents everything he isn't and never will be, while failing to realise that Marie may actually be the woman he's looking for. Only Marie is just as broken as Roy, and the ageing gangster is looking to make a clean break and a fresh start. When the subjects of gangster movies and film noir crop up, High Sierra doesn't tend to get mentioned much, but it's a terrific and often gripping crime drama, with an engrossing romance at its very core.


Directed by: Raoul Walsh
Starring: Ida Lupino, Humphrey Bogart, Alan Curtis, Arthur Kennedy, Joan Leslie
Country: USA

Rating: ****

Tom Gillespie

Review #745: 'Dumbo' (1941)

Made to recoup on the financial losses caused by the commercially unsuccessful Pinocchio and Fantasia (both 1940), Dumbo is one of Disney's shortest and narratively simplistic works to date. Ironically, it's also one of their finest. With Disney's 'nine old men' working on other projects to hopefully re-vamp the studios financial prospects, Dumbo was developed by Dick Huemer and Joe Grant, two of Disney's founding fathers, who took an unconventional approach to adapting the story from Helen Aberson's children's story. Written almost like a book, the film's charm and appeal lies in it's no frills approach.

There's no heavy-handed morality message, just a simple tale about a cute elephant with a physical affliction trying to get by in a world that will not accept him. In fact, away from Jumbo Jr., cruelly dubbed 'Dumbo' by some unsavoury elephants, and his only friend in the world Timothy Q. Mouse (Edward Brophy), Dumbo's world is full of unkindness. The faceless men who run the travelling circus Dumbo is apart of, do little but hammer and build with a depressing resignation. The other elephants, apart from Mrs. Jumbo (Verna Felton), refuse to accept him due to his comically large ears, and do everything to ridicule and exile him. There's no moment of realisation for these characters, just a satisfying pay-back.

It's strange that this is rarely mentioned as one of Disney's finest. Perhaps it's the lack of musical numbers or the use of silent-era slapstick and facial humour as opposed to the usual quipping sidekick. But for me, this enhances the enjoyment, putting more focus on the wonderful animation, and reducing the story down to something we can all relate to. Much has been said about the crows encountered by Dumbo towards the end of the film, and their racial stereotyping. I will not deny that some of Disney's early output do leave a nasty taste in the mouth, but, in fact, the crows are part of a select few who are sympathetic to Dumbo's plight, and Dumbo feels too innocent to be accused of such. And it's in this innocence that lies the magic, something that was lost once Disney came out of it's Golden Era.


Directed by: Samuel Armstrong, Norman Ferguson, Wilfred Jackson, Jack Kinney, Bill Roberts, Ben Sharpsteen
Voices: Edward Brophy, Verna Felton, Sterling Holloway, Cliff Edwards
Country: USA

Rating: *****

Tom Gillespie

Review #420: 'Suspicion' (1941)

Cocky and handsome playboy Johnnie Aysgarth (Cary Grant) romances the timid Linda (Joan Fontaine) and eventually convinces her to marry him. Her father, the wealthy General McLaidlaw (Cedric Hardwicke), strongly disapproves but cannot stop the two embarking on a very expensive honeymoon, and buying an extravagant home. It is at this point that Johnnie admits he is completely broke, and has numerous gambling debts, and was hoping that Linda's inheritance will eventually sort out their problems. After Johnnie accepts a job working for his cousin, two of Linda's valuable family heirlooms go missing, and the lies and suspicious activities start to build up.

Based on the 1932 novel Before the Fact by Frances Iles, Alfred Hitchcock's thriller is notable for the casting of heart-throb and screwball comedy regular Cary Grant as a possible homicidal maniac and compulsive con-man. The man with the longest arms in cinema gives one of his most memorable performances here, morphing himself into an irresponsible, childish and spoilt degenerate with apparent ease. Joan Fontaine won the Oscar for Best Actress (the only one for an actor working under Hitchcock), but Grant has remained strangely unrecognised, perhaps for the attitudes and behaviours of his character. 

There were stories of a studio fallout during the making of this film, with RKO concerned with the fact that Suspicion may ruin Cary Grant's heroic image, and this led to major changes having to be made from the book-to-screen adaptation, and this is the film's main problem. For such a great build-up, the climax and the big unravelling is just a big let-down, with the studio's influence as clear as day. It also slightly beggars belief how much Linda's character takes from her slimy husband, whether he is a potential murderer or not. She is truly an old-fashioned female character, standing by her husband no matter what, as boys will be boys regardless. As handsome and charming as Johnnie is, it is hard to take watching Linda forgive him almost instantly as he reveals he was hoping her vast future fortune will solve his own problems. 

Yet this is still a nicely played thriller, with Hitchcock's usual big set-pieces making way for something much more low-key. It has the same kind of money-focused, pulpy feel that the Coen brother's have come to perfect in the last twenty years or so, and would not seem out of place in a Southern gothic setting. Like most Hitchcock films, Suspicion is effortlessly watchable, but it is a shame that Hitchcock was still yet to become the colossal figure in cinema that would have seen him have complete artistic control over the film, and would have no doubt led to a much more satisfying experience. 

Directed by: Alfred Hitchcock

Starring: Cary Grant, Joan Fontaine, Nigel Bruce, Cedric Hardwicke

Country: USA

Rating: ***

Tom Gillespie