High Sierra (film)

High Sierra
Theatrical release poster
Directed byRaoul Walsh
Screenplay byJohn Huston
W. R. Burnett
Based onHigh Sierra
1940 novel
by W. R. Burnett
Produced byMark Hellinger
Starring
CinematographyTony Gaudio
Edited byJack Killifer
Music byAdolph Deutsch
Production
company
Distributed byWarner Bros.
Release date
  • January 23, 1941 (1941-01-23) (Los Angeles)[1]
Running time
100 minutes
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish
Budget$491,000[2]
Box office$1.5 million[2]

High Sierra is a 1941 American film noir directed by Raoul Walsh, written by William R. Burnett and John Huston from the novel by Burnett, and starring Ida Lupino and Humphrey Bogart. Its plot follows a career criminal who becomes involved in a jewel heist in a resort town in California's Sierra Nevada, along with a young former taxi dancer (Lupino).

Parts of the film were shot on location at Whitney Portal, halfway up Mount Whitney.

The screenplay was co-written by John Huston, Bogart's friend and drinking partner, adapted from the novel by William R. Burnett (also known for, among others, the novel Little Caesar and the script for Scarface).[3] The film cemented a strong personal and professional connection between Bogart and Huston,[4] and provided the breakthrough in Bogart's career, transforming him from supporting player to leading man. The film's success also led to a breakthrough for Huston, providing him with the leverage he needed to make the transition from screenwriter to director, which he made later that year with his adaptation of The Maltese Falcon (1941), starring Bogart.

The film contains extensive location shooting, especially in the climactic final scenes, as the authorities pursue Bogart's character, gangster Roy Earle, from Lone Pine to the foot of the mountains. The novel is also the basis of the western Colorado Territory (also directed by Walsh, starring Joel McCrea & Virginia Mayo) and the scene-by-scene remake I Died a Thousand Times (directed by Stuart Heisler with Jack Palance as Roy Earle and Shelley Winters as Marie).

  1. ^ "In Gang Drama". Los Angeles Evening Citizen News. January 21, 1941. p. 6 – via Newspapers.com.
  2. ^ a b Warner Bros financial information in The William Schaefer Ledger. See Appendix 1, Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television, (1995) 15:sup1, 1-31 p 1 doi:10.1080/01439689508604551
  3. ^ Sperber & Lax 1997, p. 119.
  4. ^ Meyers 1997, p. 115.