With the Production of High Sierra in 1940, Warner Brothers fashioned a new variation of
the classic gangster Film. This screenplay provides a unique record of one part
of its creation. To facilitate the use of the script, I shall analyse the
Production of the film, then note the major differences among the novel,
revised shooting script, and film, and finally survey why modern critics find
this film such a significant work. My purpose is not to provide yet another
“definitive reading” of the film, but rather to situate historically and
critically the important document that serves as the focus of this book.
Warners’ Production
System at Work
Like the four other major
studios during the 1930s and 1940s, Warner Brothers engineered a complete
system of Production, Distribution, and Exhibition to maximise long-term
Profits. Senior brother Harry Warner, from the New York office, coordinated
Distribution, Exhibition, and Finance. Jack Warner ran the studio-factory in
Burbank, California. In order to keep the costs low, Jack Warner maintained a
strict Division of Labour for all studio tasks. For this process, Warner
continually trained new workers and introduced potential stars to ensure that
Warners’ Movies would remain popular. Jack Warner managed the overall process
of stasis and change; his assistant, Hal B. Wallis, handled the day-to-day
decisions within Warners’ framework. In turn, Wallis placed an associate
producer on each major feature Film and thus directly monitored all changes and
emergencies. Power flowed from the top at Warners; this Hierarchy of Decision
Making ensured control of uniformity and maximum Cost saving. The
Production of High Sierra illustrates
how this System worked when most successful.
To initiate any project, Jack Warner and his
assistants selected a potential story. In 1940, Warner and Wallis had important
reasons to choose W.R. Burnett’s forthcoming novel, High Sierra. Jack Warner liked authors with good track records. In
1931, Warners had turned Burnett’s first novel, Little Caesar, into a successful gangster film. Wallis had directly
supervised the making of Little Caesar.
Subsequently, Burnett had provided Warners with two more narratives for motion
pictures: Dark Hazard (1934), based
on his 1933 novel of the same name and remade as Wine, Women
and Horses
(1937), and Doctor Socrates (1935), a gangster
story that was remade as King of the Underworld (1939). (1)
When the novel High
Sierra was published in 1940, reviewers in the United States and Great
Britain hailed it as a superior piece of gangster Fiction, principally because
of the portrayal of hero Roy Earle. For New
Republic critic Max Gissen, the Earle character was “a mixture of
old-fashioned Decency and sharp rebellion against the average Man’s role in
Society.” Others compared, quite favourably, this new work to Little Caesar.
Christopher Barton of the New Statesman
and Nation (U.K.) agrued that “High
Sierra [will be] another box-office smash for Edward G. [Robinson]. You can
almost hear the cameras at work while you read. (2)
Still, the novel did not make the best seller list as had Little Caesar.
(Burnett would wait until the early 1950s for his next, and last, best-selling
novel, The Asphalt Jungle.) Warners purchased
the exclusive Movie and Broadcasting Rights on March 27, 1940, for twenty-five
thousand dollars.
Warner and Wallis immediately set in motion Warners’
vast technical staff. Each studio department head contributed to an efficient,
cost-minimising Production schedule. The nature of a department’s involvement
depended on the specific Division of Labour. The make-up and costume
departments provide contrasting examples. Make-up head Perc Westmore receives
full credit at the end of High Sierra;
in fact, he did little of the actual physical Labour, instead planning and
supervising the Work of numerous assistants. On the other hand, costume
designer Milo Anderson was directly involved. Anderson specialised in certain
stars, one of whom was Ida Lupino. After They
Drive by Night (1940), High Sierra
was the second film for this partnership. Anderson and Westmore did have one
thing in common: both had been with the studio since the coming of sound, as
had most Warners’ Production employees. (3)
Warner and Wallis also assigned experienced persons
to help shoot High Sierra, thus
guaranteeing trouble-free Production. Director of Photography Tony Gaudio’s
career stretched back to movie making’s earliest days; by 1911, he had become
head cameraman for Carl Laemmle’s Independent Motion Picture Company. Gaudio,
who came to Warners in the early 1930s, was the consummate studio cameraman –
he had no specialty. For example, just before filming High Sierra, Gaudio worked on the spectacle Juarez, the War film Dawn
Patrol, and even the Torchy Blane B-series. In 1935, for his craftsmanship on Anthony
Adverse, Gaudio won Warners’ only Academy Award for Cinematography for the
1930s. High Sierra’s director,
Raoul Walsh, also had a long, varied career. Walsh began as an actor in Films
in 1909, moved behind the camera in 1914, and went on to direct several of the
most poular films of the 1920s: The Thief of Baghdad (1924), What Price Glory (1926), and Sadie Thompson (1927). He debuted
at Warners in 1939 with The Roaring Twenties and remained with the studio until
1951 as one of its most reliable and prolific directors. (4)
Not all those behind the camera had two decades of
movie-making Experience. For example, associate producer Mark Hellinger and
compose Adolph Deutsch had worked at Warners only a short time and would go on
to fashion the important part of their careers after they moved to other
studios, Hellinger to
Universal and Deutsch to MGM. Of the relative newcomers, co-scriptwriter
John Huston achieved the most enduring Fame. Huston embarked for Hollywood in
1938 (for the second time) to become a contract scriptwriter for Warners. In
1939 he worked on the blockbuster Juarez and, during the
following years, Dr. Ehrlich’s Magic Bullet (for which he
received an Academy Award nomination). After the success of High Sierra and with another Academy
Award script nomination for Sergeant York
in 1941, Huston was permitted to direct as well as write. Huston’s first effort
was The Maltese Falcon (1941). Going
on to a career as director-writer-actor, he won for Warners two Academy Awards
(best direction and best original screenplay) for The Treasures of the Sierra Madre (1948). (5)
The Production of High
Sierra was unique – and important for the Warners studio – because of all
the new talent in front of the camera. In 1940, Humphrey Bogart and Ida Lupino
were only supporting players; Jack Warner successfully elevated both to star
status with High Sierra. For Bogart,
the official Hollywood legend argues it provided “the break,” the major turning
point in his career. One of Bogart’s numerous biographers, Joe Hyams,
summarises the Myth most succintly:
In 1940, thanks to a fortuitous chain of
circumstances, [Bogart] got an important break. George Raft had been offered
the role of a gangster in a picture called High
Sierra. The Hollywood censors decreed that the gangster must die, because
he had committed six killings. Raft refused to die in a film. Paul Muni turned
it down because it had been offered first to Raft. Cagney declined it, and so
did Edward G. Robinson. (6)
The accounts then very on who pushed for Bogart. Some
claim it was Hellinger; most credit Charles Einfeld, Warners’ Publicity
director. More plausibly, Jack Warner moved down to the next name on the list
of eligible male stars, and that was Bogart. Yet if High Sierra was a turning point in Bogart’s career, it was a small
one. In truth, with The Maltese Falcon Bogart became a major star. That film
was released in October 1941, nine months after High Sierra. (7)
In 1941, Ida Lupino received top billing for High Sierra. Only later with the
creation of the “Bogie” Myth would the star rankings seem reversed. Born to a
noted British stage family, Lupino was brought to Hollywood by Paramount in
1935 at age fifteen to become another Clara Bow. She played minor ingénue roles
for several studios until she landed part in The Drive by Night. Jack Warner then signed her to a standard
seven-year contract and cast her with Bogart, who also had a supporting role in
They Drive by Night, for her next
film, High Sierra. (8)
Two new supporting players appeared in High Sierra: Arthur Kennedy and Joan
Leslie. Both became Warners’ staples’ during the 1940s. A New York legitimate
actor, Kennedy came to Warners for City for Conquest,
released September 1940, and then signed a seven-year Warners’ contract. High Sierra was his second film under
that contract. Although Warners had plans to make Kennedy a star, at this point
in his career he continued in the slot of top supporting figure, a function
similar to Bogart’s position at Warners during the late 1930s. Kennedy went on
to a distinguished career in Films and Television. Joan Leslie, although a
newcomer to Movies in 1940, had started on the vaudeville stage at age five.
She had played in minor (and forgettable) films until her work in High Sierra. Then Warners signed her to
a seven-year contract and starred her in Sergeant York (1940). For the next six
years she was Warners’ resident girl-next-door. (9)
The minor figures – Henry Hull, Henry Travers, Jerome
Cowan, Minna Gombell, Barton MacLane, Donald MacBride and Willie Best – all
portrayed their usual character types. Of them all, only MacLane regularly
worked for Warners; the rest free-lanced. (10) In
sum, Warner and Wallis did take a chance with the stars for High Sierra, but with an experienced
technical staff, director, and cinematographer and a familiar set of supporting
figures, the two executives minimised risk. If Bogart, Lupino, Kennedy and
Leslie had not proven to be successful, there would have been other films in
which to try other combinations of this potential “star material.”
Most of High
Sierra was filmed at Warners’ Burbank studio, with some location Work done
in the Big Bear Lake and Lake Arrowhead area of Southern California. The
shooting began during the first week of July 1940 and was completed three
months later, right on schedule. Immediately the assemly phase commenced.
Warners’ music department, under Leo F. Forbstein, and veteran editor Jack
Killifer prepared the film for its release, and High Sierra opened in New York on January 25, 1941.
Warner Brothers sold the film quite predictably.
Advertisements hailed Lupino and Bogart, “the stars whose startling performances
in They Drive by Night made them Top
Box Office Names,” and quoted author Burnett (“My story to top Little Caesar is High Sierra”) and director Walsh (“High Sierra is the most thrilling and unusual picture I have
directed since What Price Glory”). The ads further reminded potential filmgoers that Warner
Brothers also had produced the earlier gangster hits Little Caesar and Angels
with Dirty Faces (1938). Warners’ publicists provided exhibitors with a six-day
serial story, rewritten for the movie, reviews for insertion in local
newspapers, and ideas for contests and promotions. (11)
High Sierra
opened (first run) in America’s large cities through February and March 1941.
Gradually – usually as part of a double feature – it played second, third, and subsequent
runs. Each run lasted one week, two at the most. In most cases, exhibitors
found the film provided excellent business; for example, it fared 25 percent
better than normal in Memphis, Louisville, Los Angeles, New York, Seattle,
Chicago and Pittsburgh. In September, Variety
noted that it was one of the top grossers of the year, no blockbuster, but a
very successful film. (12)
The critical reception in High Sierra was generally favourable. Trade papers like the Hollywood Reporter found the film to be
a fine addition to Warners’ string of “crime pictures, ... a gripping drama of
great vitality and sustained suspense, as marked for its impressive
characterisation as its vivid action. It is a real Entertainment all the way
and should do extremely well at the box office.” (13)
Middle-brow Publications agreed with the Time reviewer who argued, “What makes High Sierra something more than a Grade B melodrama is its
sensitive delineation of gangster Earle’s character.” (14)
New York Times critic Bosley Crowther
waxed in his usual overblown style: “We wouldn’t know for certain whether the
twilight of the American gangster is here. But Warner Brothers, who should know
if anyone does, have apparently taken it for granted and, in a solemn Wagnerian
mood, are giving that titanic figure a send-off befitting a first-string god in
the film called High Sierra.... It’s
truly magnificent, that’s all.” (15) Only Variety found the film wanting and hence
predicted (incorrectly) only “ok” box-office revenues. Its reviewers argued
that there were “too many side issues that clutter up the [story]” and noted
the final third of the film was too long. (16)
Thus, in all respects High Sierra was a success for Warner Brothers. The film was made
efficiently, and on schedule, and generated sizable revenues. Even the risks,
trying new talent, turned inot successes: the studio had new stars in Bogart
and Lupino, and minor personalities in Kennedy and Leslie. Such was the
accomplishment that in 1949 Warners released a remake, Colorado Territory. Raoul Walsh directed again, and Joel McCrea
played the Roy Earle role, and Virginia Mayo the Marie Garson part. Warners
retained the original narrative, but reworked it as a western! In 1955, Warners
released yet another remake, I Died a Thousand Times, in WarnerColor and
CinemaScope. Here the studio stuck to the original genre. Jack Palance played
Roy Earle, and Shelley Winters, Marie Garson. Clearly, Jack Warner had been
very astute in 1940 when he purchased Rights to High Sierra, for this narrative would be one of the studio’s best
long-run investments. (17)
Comparing Novel,
Screenplay and Film
For such an important narrative, we would expect to
have numerous drafts of the script, as do other titles in the Wisconsin/Warner
Bros. Screenplay Series, with which to trace the specific creative changes. In
fact, we have only the novel, final revised screenplay reprinted here, and the
film. Moreover, the story is basically the same in the novel, the screenplay
and the film. In each, the central figure, Roy Earle, is first pardoned, then
journeys to California, prepares for the robbery of Tropico Springs resort,
escapes, and is eventually trapped and killed in the Sierra Mountains. In the
process, he meets a young crippled girl, Velma Goodhue, and her family and
helps her obtain an operation for her clubfoot. Later she refuses his marriage
proposal. Marie Garson, a former dance-hall girl, wins Roy’s affection and
survives him at the end. But despite these common elements in the three versions,
important differences exist, especially inthe beginnings and endings, that
change High Sierra from a novel about
Roy Earle, a man who happens to be a gangster, to a gangster film whose hero is
Roy Earle.
As the novel begins, Roy Earle is driving across the
Nevada-California desert, having just been pardoned from Prison. That
information is covered in one sentence. For the next seven pages we learn of
Roy’s thoughts – nostalgic Memories of summer days at the swimming hole,
Saturday ball games, visits to Aunt Minnie’s house, as well as darker images of
fights and stabbings. Roy imagines himself as a tall, heavy-shouldered, hard,
and muscular man, a “cross between a farmer and a refined gorilla.” Thus,
immediately, author Burnett has specified the central interest of the novel,
the Psyche of Roy Earle. The narrative then traces Roy’s mental anguish as he
struggles to understand a modern, post-Depression World.
The screenplay opens with a classic icon of the
gangster film, the first-page headlines of a newspaper declaring public protest
to gangster Roy Earle’s pardon. Unlike the novel, there is no interest in Roy’s
thought process. Instead, Roy’s past and present behaviour is placed,
uncompromisingly, in opposition to Society’s view of correct Morality. The
narrative enigma becomes: How will this gangster adjust to a post-Depression
World, after eight years in Prison? He cannot go straight; in order to reply
his debt for the fixed pardon, he must engineer one more robbery. Inevitably,
convention dictates, this action will lead to Roy’s recapture or death. If the
classic gangster tale is one of rise and then fall, High Sierra’s variation as a screenplay and film is just the fall.
To obtain instructions concerning the robbery, Roy
contacts Jack Kranmer. Before Roy arrives, Kranmer and his blonde unnamed
girlfriend argue. She wants to meet the famous Roy Earle, the legendary bandit of
the Great Depression. When Roy enters, the first time we meet him in the
screenplay, he is old, gray, and pale, possessing none of the brute size
Burnett described in the novel. Kranmer’s girl is quite disappointed. This
gangster is already on the decline; still, he does not give up without a fight.
When Kranmer tries to bully him, Roy slaps Kranmer and then abruptly leaves for
his journey to California to meet the top man, “Big Mac.” Only then does Roy
contact his past by visiting the Indiana farm that had been his boyhood home.
At first the farm’s present tenant, fooled by Roy’s new suit and fine car,
reasons that Roy represents the local Bank and has come to foreclose. Struck by
the irony, Roy assures him he has only come to visit. Here we are reminded of
the classic justification for the gangster: the Robin Hood figure of the Great
Depression. Moments later the farmer recognises Roy and begins to shake. The
Depression is over and now this reputed bandit provides a great threat than any
banker. The Power of the mass Media, suggested by the headline in the first
scene of the screenplay and by Kranmer’s girlfriend’s interest in the gangster-as-celebrity,
even reaches into rural America. Discouraged, Roy leaves. High Sierra, even in
script form, openly acknowledges its genre; the ability of the mass Media to
create and shape perception becomes an important motif.
Warners began the film with a long scene not found in
the screenplay. This new material signifies, even more specifically than the
screenplay does, that High Sierra falls into the gangster genre. The film opens
with a long shot of a capitol building, a symbol of the State’s legal
Authority. Then with a quick montage sequence, we see the Governor sign Roy’s
pardon and the release of one prisoner, seemingly at random. (18) Why is this particular man being set free? In
one shot we learn the reason. This is another “fix”; the iconography of the
driver, the car, and Bogart (the gangster figure of so many previous films),
all framed in deep space, gives it away. But as soon as we think we “know” the
story, Roy Earle acts strangely. He demands to be driven to a nearby park. What
type of ex-convict wants to commune with nature immediately upon release from
Prison? The film lingers on this seeming enigma. First we see Roy’s feet in the
grass from the same angle and placement as the shot of his feet in Prison
minutes before. We even have the film’s point-of-view shot, as Roy examines the
trees, birds, and sky. He sits down and basks in the idyllic setting.
Only then does the film pick up where the screenplay
began. In the film, the newspaper headline becomes a transitional device to the
scene where Roy meets Kranmer. Then the film matches the screenplay’s initial
scenes (described above) quite closely. Yet the new beginning sets off the film
even more from the novel. The Psychology of the novel has completely vanished;
the motif of the mass Media, so paramount in the screenplay, is not secondary.
Warner Brothers has fashioned another gangster film, albeit an inventive one.
This gangster, like his predecessors, has compromised the highest reaches of
Authority and therefore must be recaptured or die. The mass Media do not
present a distorted image; despite any Good Samaritan deeds or reflexions upon
Nature, Roy Earle remains a dangerous part of the criminal system, a continual
threat until the end.
All three versions of High Sierra are traditional
narratives in which the enigmas established initially are developed and
resolved. It is in closure that again major differences among the three stand
out most clearly. Thus the novel, which began with Roy’s thoughts, ends in the
same fashion. As the Police chase Roy, the point of view is always with Roy
himself as he tries to make the best of a tragic situation. (19) Then suddenly, Roy is killed. It is over in
only six pages. Despite all his efforts, reflexions and thoughts, Roy could
never fit inot a modern, almost alien World.
The screenplay has more enigmas to resolve, and thus
requires a longer ending. Roy flees to meet girlfriend Marie. In the midst of
this action comes closure of the Goodhue subplot. Earlier Roy helped the
family, financed Velma’s operation, and posed no physical or Moral threat. Yet
upon learning of Roy’s identity as a gangster, the Goodhues are shocked. Legend
now outweighs actual Experience. The rest of the screenplay then outlines Roy’s
entrapment and death, yet unlike the novel the point of view has switched to
the Authorities at the base of the mountain. The major focus becomes the Media
carnival surrounding the capture, complete with constant Radio reports, large
crowds, and conecessionaires. The screenplay, which opened with a news
headline, closes with a repetition of the motif of the pervasive influence of
the mass Media. Fittingly after Roy is killed, it is a reporter who mutters,
“Sic transit gloria mundi.” The gangster story, complete with the mass Media
complications, is over.
Because of its more complex opening, the film takes
even longer to tie together all the narrative strands. Roy flees, but having
given all his money to Marie whom he will meet later, he must ironically
perform one more robbery. The Police are called, and in a one-minute Hollywood
montage the police use maps, Radios, and a system of roadblocks to capture Roy.
There is no equivalent in the screenplay. Here we have the full scientific
apparatus of the State marshaled against the gangster. Authority, so compromised
at the opening of the film, now exposes its full Force to redeem itself.
Consequently, unlike the novel or screenplay, the Police immediately spot Roy
and begin the chase. During this long pursuit, parallel editing isolates the
Police, never as individuals but simply as a set of automobiles. Roy cannot
escape from this Technology; he soon comes upon fallen boulders. But what
dominates the center frame, that priviledged space in the classic Hollywood
Drama, is a sign Road Closed. Again Roy is trapped by the Forces of the State,
here stronger than even the natural boundaries.
In the screenplay, the closure of the Goodhue subplot
interrupted Roy’s flight to the mountains. There is no such sequence in the
film. Closure occurred when Roy visited the fully recovered Velma for the last
time and became disgusted with the middle-class monster he had helped create.
Thus it is the gangster who is sickened by middle-class Americans, completely
inverting the action in the screenply.
Nevertheless, the gangster must die. In the film, the
Siege functions also as a Media spectacle, emphasising the Drama of Authority
crushing yet another lawbreaker. A Radio announcer narrates the eventual
ending, while Authorities contemplates using a squadron of planes to bomb Roy
but settle for a single man using a rifle with a telescopic lens. Because of
angle and placement, when Roy is killed, the camera is so far away we cannot
even tell if it is Roy. He left Prison anonymously and is killed thusly. Again
a reporter declares Earle wasn’t much, but no Latin phrase here, just a simple
summing up – gangsters can never win. The film ends with Marie’s asserting that
now Roy is truly free. Only with death can this gangster find an escape from
the crushing material Forces that led him to a life of Crime.
This analysis of the beginning and end of the novel,
screenplay, and film reveals much about the process of creation of High Sierra.
The novel is the psychological study of Roy Earle, the anachronism. It focuses
on his reactions, feelings, and hopes. The script-writers restructed the novel
into the gangster genre mold. The gangster must pull a final job but cannot
escape, trapped partly because of the mass Media. For filming, Warners altered
the screenplay so High Sierra became a classic tale of the fall of the gangster
hero. Roy Earle is unique in that he tries to adjust to normal Society, but
since the Power of the State was so compromised at the film’s beginning, no
amount of Good deeds or communing with Nature can help. True Freedom comes only
with death – a bleak prospect foreshadowing the film noir of the late 1940s.
Finally, all three versions concern not only Roy
Earle but also his relations with others, particularly two women. In the
screenplay and film, the Morality of sexual relations is drawn more clearly
than in the novel. In both, Roy meets the pure but crippled Velma and is
rejected. Only then does he form his alliance with the wicked Marie. Thus in
the fiml and the screenplay, this subplot with Velma is nearly over before the Tropico robbery. The two
relationships are posed as alternatives and clearly separated. No Moral dilemma
is involved: Roy’s downfall is partly due to rejection by the virginal woman.
In the novel, Roy develops his relationship with Marie long before Velma
rejects him. Still, the novel should not be thought of as absolutely more
complex. In the novel, Velma remains a naive, simple-minded girl, while in the
film she becomes, after her operation, an ambitious, clawing woman. Velma is
offensive; Marie, with her steadfastness, elicits more of the audience’s
Sympathy. Thus, although the film on the surface appears to provide the usual
dichotomy concerning Sex, upon closer inspection the choice is as ambiguous as
in the novel.
Recent Evaluation
On the whole, High
Sierra is a classic narrative film: the use of editing, camerawork, sound
and mise-en-scène follows quite closely those rules of acceptable film making
associated with the Hollywood style. (20)
There are several flourishes, for example, the use of deep space as Roy leaves
Jail and the continuous 360-degree pan during the chase up the mountain. But it
is not for stylistic reasons that recent critics find High Sierra to be an important film; rather, their criteria focus
on the level of theme and genre.
There seems to be three categories for praise. First,
some critics applaud High Sierra’s
influences on other cultural artifacts. (Humphrey Bogart’s continual popularity
has guaranteed that few cineastes have not seen the film either on Television,
at a Film society, or in a revival Theatre.) Thus, for example, in Save the Tiger (1972),
a sequence from High Sierra is seen
in the background, on a Television set in a bar. The film may even have
influenced poets. Critic John L. Simons argues that John Berryman’s “Dream Song No. 9” (1969) contains
clear references to High Sierra.
Simons has compared the two works and has explicated how the film influenced
the poem. (21)
Other analysts examine films as “reflected” responses
to American Culture and find High Sierra
an important work. For instance, Kenneth D. Alley argues that gangsters, alone,
made the rich and powerful pay for the great economic collapse of the 1930s. (22) In 1940, however, Alley claims, “the times”
called for people to pull together. The outsider, the rebel had become an
anachronism. In reponse, Warner Brothers raised Roy Earle, their new gangster
figure, to a position of high tragedy in an almost classical sense. High Sierra
represented a nation’s farewell to the gangster and the Great Depression.
Following the lead of noted critic Robert Warshow, Alley finds this “last”
gangster an important, unique hero:
Roy Earle becomes, finally, a hero of universal
significance, betrayed like us all by his judgement and by his choices. The
clichés of the crime Film have been raised to cinematic Art of a high order. It
is no fluke that High Sierra boosted Bogart to stardom, for his portrayal of
Roy Earle touched some of the deepest strings in the human Psyche. (23)
With this interest in High Sierra as a gangster film,
it is not surprising that a third type of analysis has emerged, one that tries
to elevate the film to an important place in the History of that genre. Films
about gangsters can be found in the earliest narrative Cinema. For example.
D.W. Griffith’s The Musketeers of Pig
Alley (1912) portrayed urban Crime on an organised scale; what it lacked
was that particular, systematic use of the elements of narrative and
iconography that we have come to associate with the classic gangster film.
Josef von Sternberg’s Underworld
(Paramount, 1927) provides the usual point of origin for the classic period. In
a recent article Gerald Peary argues convincingly that the 1928 film The Racket more
correctly serves as the inaugural effort because of its story of the bootleg
Wars of Chicago and its concern with the rise and fall of a Prohibition
gangster, modeled loosely on the Actions of Al Capone.
Still a common narrative is not enough; a genre must
also manifest similar iconography. For the classic gangster film, this comes
with Warner Brothers’ Little Caesar
(1931) and Public Enemy (1931), as
well as the independently produced Scarface
(1932). Their popularity guaranteed that Hollywood would and did produce dozens
of imitations during the early 1930s. Moral agencies asserted that a new Evil
Force had appeared on motion picture screens. Warners countered with
alternatives: G-Men (1935) concerned
successful FBI suppression of a gang, Bullets or Ballots (1936) dealt with
gang being infiltrated by the Police, and Angels
with Dirty Faces (1938) described the social conditions that led to the
rise of Gangsterism. With the coming of World War II, Hollywood switched to new
variations of the Crime narrative with the detective film and film noir, and
the classic gangster film became one more important referent within the History
of American Cinema. (24)
The classic gangster film is characterised by certain
rigid conventions of narrative and iconography. Andrew Bergman has argued that
the dominant story is best labeled a “success tragedy.” The gangster hero, from
a poor, immigrant background, works his way to the top – outside the Law. The
narrative enigmas concern his difficulties in this steady advancement to the
summit of a criminal organisation. He begins in a subordinate position, lives
only for his Work, asserts his extraordinary skill at Murder, and finally acquires
ultimate Power. Then, convention dictates, he must die, killed either by the
Police or a new gangster-hero. The iconography (repeated elements of the
mise-en-scène) of this rise and fall are quite familiar. The site for Action is
the city, principally at night: dark streets, dingy rooming houses, bars with
flashing neon signs outside, and garish nightclubs. The gangster skillfully
employs modern America’s most complex Technology to fight and kill (automobiles
and guns) and communicate (Telephone). Actors such as Edward G. Robinson and
Humphrey Bogart best signified the gangster’s unique combination of physical
coordination and an aged, beat-up face. Countless character actors and
actresses reemerge as necessary assistants, gun molls, stool pigeons, and/or strong-armed,
sadistic guards. We usually find uneven lighting, either dappled or deeply
shadowed. And few do not recognise the prerequisite double-breasted suits and
1920s flappers’ dresses. Throughout the 1930s Hollywood told and retold the
gangster “success tragedy” with numerous variations and much inventions. (25)
Earlier, in comparing the novel, screenplay and film,
I argued that the film High Sierra was a classic gangster movie in which we
find a unique hero. Critic Jack Shadoian places the film at a pivotal point
within the development of the gangster/crime genere because of this portrayal.
After High Sierra the deviant behaviour of the gangster-hero ceases to be the
genre’s central focus; instead it is Society that has become corrupt. Like
Kenneth Alley, Shadoian finds Roy Earle to be a dreamer, a man of nature – in
short, a positive figure. Thus Shadoian goes on to argue that
[High Sierra’s] basic structure sticks close to the
classic pattern – the rise and fall of a big shot – with this difference: the
pattern is intertwined. Here it is no rise and all fall, but by falling the
hero rises. He does not die squalidly, in a gutter, but nobly, at the foot of a
mountain, and his death is equated with Freedom. Having transcended the World
and the judgements of Morality, the classic gangster has achieved the best he
could have hoped for. (26)
What made this narrative inversion possible was a
more open and flexible generic form. Thus, Shadoian concludes, High Sierra
signaled the end of the classic gangster film and the beginning of film noir. (27)
In sum, for several important reasons High Sierra
deserves our attention. Overall, although Shadoian’s Work is the most
sophisticated of the current critical arguments concerning this film, it must
still be judged as only a first step. Presently Film History, Criticism, and
Theory are in a state of flux; the old methods are being reviewed and replaced.
Much remains to be rethought, especially the terms of analysis for Film genre,
and Film narrative. One need is clear: film scholars must have ready access to
the maximum amount of potential primary data. The publication of the revised
screenplay for High Sierra provides an important step in that direction.
1.
“Warner Brothers,” Fortune, December 1937, pp.
110-113 ff.; Jack L. Warner, My First Hundred Years in Hollywood (New York:
Random House, 1965); David Thomson, A Biographical Dictionary of the Cinema
(London: Secker & Warburg, 1975), pp. 593-94; Richard Corliss, ed., The
Hollywood Screenwriters (New York: Avon, 1972), pp. 297-98. These footnotes
survey the large number of materials concerning High Sierra in English. No attempt was made to compile items in
other languages.
2.
Substantial reviews of the novel High Sierra appeared in the following:
New Republic, April 8, 1940, p. 480; New Statesman and Nation, August 3, 1940,
pp. 114, 116, 118; New York Herald Tribune Books, March 10, 1940, p. 10; New
York Times Book Review, March 10, 1940, p. 6; New Yorker, March, 9, 1940, p.
90; Saturday Review, March 30, 1940, p. 12; Spectator, August 2, 1940, p. 128;
Times Literary Supplement, July 27, 1940, p. 361. Information on W.R. Burnett
was gathered from Stanley J. Kunitz, Twentieth Century Authors, first
supplement (New York: H.W. Wilson, 1955), p. 149; Harry R. Warfel, American
Novelists of Today (New York: American Book Co., 1951), pp. 64-65; “W.R.
Burnett,” Film Dope (U.K.), July 1974, pp. 49-50; Hollywood Reporter, March 18,
1940, p. 4.
3.
Jim Bishop, The Mark Hellinger Story (New York:
Appleton-Century-Crofts, 1952), p. 266; Motion Picture Herald, August 10, 1940,
p. 27; David Chierichetti, Hollywood Costume Design (New York: Harmony, 1976),
pp. 74-86; Frank Westmore and Muriel Davidson, The Westmores of Hollywood (New
York: Berkeley Medallion, 1976), pp. 62-77.
4.
“Tony Gaudio,” Focus on Film, January 1973, p.
33; Martin Quigley, ed., Motion Picture Almanac, 1945-1946 (New York: Quigley,
1946), p. 117; Phil Hardy, ed., Raoul Walsh (Colchester, England: Edinburgh
Film Festival, 1974), pp. 111-54; Kingsley Canham, The Hollywood Professionals:
Curtiz, Walsh, and Hathaway (London: Tantivy, 1972), pp. 81-138; Raoul Walsh,
Each Man in His Own Time (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1974).
5.
Bishop, Hellinger, pp. 267-367; Ted Sennett,
Warner Brothers Presents (New York: Castle, 1971), pp. 304, 312; Quigley,
Almanac, 1945-1946, pp. 72, 316; Thomson, Dictionary, pp. 232, 461; William F.
Nolan, John Huston: King Rebel (Los Angeles: Shelbourne, 1965), pp. 37-39;
Gerald Pratley, The Cinema of John Huston (New York: A.S. Barnes, 1977), pp.
36-37; “John Huston,” Current Biography, February 1949: Stuart Kaminsky, John
Huston: Maker of Magic (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1978), p. 18.
6.
Joe Hyams, Bogie (New York: New American
Library, 1966), p. 68.
7.
Ezra Goodman, Bogey: The Good-Bad Guy (New York:
Lyle Stuart, 1965), pp. 31-32, 194-95; Nathaniel Benchley, Humphrey Bogart
(Boston: Little Brown, 1975), pp. 64-100. See also Alistair Cooke, Six Men (New
York: Knopf, 1977), pp. 183-205; Alan Barbour, Humphrey Bogart (New York:
Pyramid, 1973); Allen Eyles, Bogart (London: Macmillan, 1975); “Humphrey
Bogart,” Current Biography, May 1942, pp. 7-8.
8.
Jerry Vermilye, “Ida Lupino,” Films in Review,
May 1959, pp. 266-83; “Ida Lupino,” Current Biography, September 1943, pp.
54-56; Thomson, Dictionary, p. 341.
9.
James Robert Parish and Lennard DeCarl,
Hollywood Players: The Forties (New Rochelle, N.Y.: Arlington House, 1976), pp.
344-61; “Arthur Kennedy,” Current Biography, November 1961; Thomson,
Dictionary, pp. 326-27; Kyle Crichton, “The Strenuous Life,” Collier’s, June
28, 1941, pp. 13, 36; Gladys Hall, “The Love of Three Sisters,” Photoplay,
October 1941, pp. 40-41, 95-97.
10.
Cornel Wilde, a major star of the late 1940s,
has a small role in High Sierra. He
would the film’s only minor player to go on to achieve fame.
11.
Sennett, Warner, p. 306; Quigley, Almanac,
1945-1946, p. 104; the following issues of Motion Picture Herald, October 5,
1940, pp. 39, 75; October 19, 1940, p. 40; October 30, 1940, p. 61; December
21, 1940, p. 69.
12.
The following issues of Variety: January 22,
1941, pp. 9-10; January 29, 1941, pp. 8-9; February 5, 1941, p. 11; February
19, 1941, p. 9; February 26, 1941, p. 9; September 3, 1941, p. 24; also Chester
B. Bahn, ed., Film Daily Yearbook, 1942 (New York: Film Daily, 1942), p. 111.
13.
Hollywood Reporter, January 22, 1941, p. 3;
Motion Picture Herald, January 25, 1941, p. 50; Photoplay, April 1941, p. 114.
14.
Reviews in Time, February 17, 1941, p. 94, and
New Republic, February 10, 1941, p. 180 (by Otis Feguson).
15.
New York Times, January 25, 1941, p. 11.
16.
Variety, January 22, 1941, p. 16.
17.
Michael B. Druxman, Make It Again, Sam (New
York: A.S. Barnes, 1975), pp. 69-74; Motion Picture Herald, May 21, 1949, p.
4617; New York Times, June 25, 1949, p. 8; New York Times, November 10, 1955,
p. 45; Variety, October 12, 1955, p. 22.
18.
The pardon reads Fall Term 1932 – the date when
Roy was convicted. The film is set in 1940, as we learn from the license plate
on Roy’s car.
19.
In fact, in the novel, W.R. Burnett often describes
Roy’s tortured dreams. Such torment becomes an important motif for developing Roy’s
psychic reactions. This motif is reduced to one short sequence in the film.
20.
For the most complete summary of this classic
Hollywood style, see David Bordwell and Kristin Thompson, Film Art: An
Introduction (Reading, Mass.: Addison-Wesley, 1979), chapter 3.
21.
John L. Simons, “Henry on Bogie: Reality and
Romance in ‘Dream Song No. 9’ and High
Sierra,” Literature/Film Quaterly 5, no. 3 (Summer 1977), pp. 269-71;
Bernard F. Dick, Anatomy of Film (New York: St. Martin’s, 1978), pp. 90-91; Tom
Shales, The American Film Heritage (Washington: Acropolis, 1972), pp. 100-103;
Manny Farber, Negative Space (New York: Praeger, 1971), p. 3.
22.
Kenneth D. Alley, “High Sierra – Swan Song for an Era,” Journal of Popular Film 5,
nos. 3 and 4 (1976), pp. 248-62.
23.
Alley, “High
Sierra,” p. 261. Robert Warshow’s famous essay on the gangster film, “The
Gangster as Tragic Hero,” can be found in his book The Immediate Experience
(New York: Atheneum, 1970), pp. 127-33.
24.
Gerald M. Peary, “ ‘The Racket’: A Lost Gangster
Classic,” The Velvet Light Trap, no. 14 (1975), pp. 6-9; Lewis Jacobs, The Rise
of the American Film (New York: Teachers College Press, 1939), pp. 68-69,
408-410; Colin McArthur, Underworld USA (New York: Viking, 1972), pp. 34-42;
Jack Shadoian, Dreams and Dead Ends: The American Gangster/Crime Film
(Cambridge: MIT Press, 1977), pp. 15-58; Arthur Sacks, “An Analysis of the
Gangster Movies of the Early Thirties,” The Velvet Light Trap, no. 1 (1971),
pp. 5-11.
25.
Andrew Bergman, We’re in the Money: Depression
America and Its Films (New York: New York University Press, 1971), pp. 3-17;
Warshow, The Immediate Experience, pp. 132-33; Colin McArthur, Underworld USA,
pp. 23-33; John G. Cawelti, Adventure, Mystery, and Romance: Formula Stories
and Popular Culture (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1976), pp. 60-61.
26.
Shadoian, Dreams, p. 82.
27.
Shadoian, Dreams, pp. 67-80.
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