And… we’re back with another Criterion Month! For another 30 days, we’ll be taking a look at Criterion’s catalog of films, reviewing them as thoroughly as we can, though there’s a good chance some of these reviews will get published at the last minute or with some lack of exhaustive research. This could be especially true for myself, as I chose a lot of films this year spanning the ‘40s through the ‘70s, while my colleagues steered a little more clear of those years. While we won’t be looking at any of Hollywood’s silent or pre-Code years, we will get a look at a film that displays the Hollywood studios’ ability to grow over the course of those years into a well-oiled machine capable of churning out well-crafted entertainment.
High Sierra is not often talked about as one of Humphrey Bogart’s iconic roles, but after seeing the film and reading a bit about it, it seems obvious that the film is one of the more important ones in the legendary star’s career. It’s one that also firmly placed Bogart at the forefront of the ‘40s’ most prominent crime subgenre, film noir, after spending years toiling in the backgrounds of the ‘30s’ most prominent crime subgenre, the gangster picture. Bogart had been mostly playing heavies in these types of films, with his most iconic of these roles being 1936’s The Petrified Forest, where he played the main villain, Duke Mantee. However, High Sierra is a kind of hybrid role, where he is still playing a criminal, but one that also has the more honorable, sympathetic qualities that made him both prime for playing detectives as well as romantic anti-heroes. Continue reading
