Ask a moderately knowledgeable film buff about which role made Humphrey Bogart famous, and nine out of ten will say The Maltese Falcon. This film was released in October of 1941. However, ten months before that, Bogart starred in the film that really got him noticed- Raoul Walsh's High Sierra, released in January, 1941. Written by the great W.R. Burnett and with a screenplay by John Huston, High Sierra presents Bogart's Roy Earle as the gangster-as-tragic-hero. This was something new in films, with only James Cagney's Eddie Bartlett coming before him, in Walsh's 1939 release of The Roaring Twenties. Before these Walsh-directed films, gangsters and outlaws were always the bad guy and only the bad guy. Depression-era America helped create these characters, with gangsters functioning in the role of the Twentieth Century's "man of action".

Eight years after High Sierra, Raoul Walsh once again revisited Burnett's tragic hero, but this time in the form of a Western, and with Joel McCrea instead of Bogart in the lead role. This is a remake worth your time, unlike most of them.

Airing on TCM this afternon at 4:30 pm EST

thanks, I learned something new today. High Sierra is a great film, looking forward to the comparison.


Oh my, it's got Dorothy Malone, too... I'll be happy.