– Life along the Slaney

Director: Raoul Walsh

Starring: Humphrey Bogart, Ida Lupino, Alan Curtis, Arthur Kennedy

It was the role he was waiting all his life for. After years of playing second fiddle to the likes of James Cagney, Edward G. Robinson and George Muni and acting in ‘fluff’ movies, Bogart landed the role of aging gangster, Roy Earle.

It must have been a bit of a blow to his ego however when Bogart was only second on the billing behind Ida Lupino, an actress who had recent success with “They Drive by Night”.

However Bogart’s road to this career-changing role was not easy as firstly George Muni was offered the role, which he turned down twice, even after author of the original book WR Burnett had helped John Huston with the rewrite.

The studio then planned to offer the role to George Raft, but he was looking to get away from playing gangsters, so Bogart, knowing this, tipped him off as to what the studio was planning. Raft marched into their offices and flatly refused to take the role.

And so we get Bogart playing the tough guy for the first time in his career and he sets the bar for the rest of his film life with his portrayal of a toughened gangster looking for the last big score to allow him retire and head back to the ‘old country’ and work the land.

The film starts with Earle receiving a pardon from a life sentence for some unknown dastardly deeds in the past. Earle is ordered to head to California where a job has already been set up.

We see a strange melancholy gangster in Earle as he takes a minute to make sure the grass is green on his release from prison and stops off on his cross country journey to visit his old family farm.

This sets the tone for the whole film as director Raoul Walsh juxtaposes the tough gangster with the aging man looking for a way out.

The toughness is there. When he meets the men he is working with he is quick to lay down the law and tell them what’s what. The hardness of the man oozes from every pour of Bogart. He is always in control; always in charge.

While Willie Best does his best to portray the most ludicrously stereotypical black-man in the guise of Algernon, but it cannot be viewed with today’s eyes and has to be looked at in the context of the time.

High Sierra set up Bogart as the archetypal tough guy with a sharp wit and macho charisma. His next two films, Maltese Falcon and Casablanca, would cement his place in cinematic history – and he would forever more occupy top billing in his films.