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Prohibition era gangster Roy Earle (Humphrey Bogart) walks out of prison...and into two unfamiliar worlds: the jitterbugging 1940s and the towering majesty of High Sierra. This fast-paced, heist-gone-wrong manhunt movie is also a fascinating study of a man time has passed by. Earle identifies more with the era's homeless Okies than the callow punks he leads on a disastrous hotel robbery. Then the teenager he loves (Joan Leslie) rejects him and only Marie (Ida Lupino), a weary '30s survivor like himself, remains loyal when cops close in. Directed with gritty intensity by Raoul Walsh, High Sierra signalled a new era. Bogart's starmaking performance marked the transition from the well-defined villainy of gangster films to the existentially gray areas of film noir. High Sierra means high excitement!
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