High Sierra + Colorado Territory 10/23/21

An old favorite receives a quality restoration: Raoul Walsh, John Huston, W.R. Burnett and actress Ida Lupino launch Humphrey Bogart as an A-list star deemed strong enough to carry romantic leads. Bogart’s gangster Roy Earle is a classic anti-hero; audiences in 1941 surely thought the film’s play with wrongdoing and heroism was edgy material. Lupino’s loser-turned-lover is a dynamite asset for a man on the run, and the sentimental touches don’t mar the spectacular finale: this all-American bandit meets his end on a California peak, not a dirty urban gutter. A second disc carries the full feature Colorado Territory, a remake/transposition of the Bogie classic into an excellent western with Joel McCrea and Virginia Mayo. On Blu-ray from The Criterion Collection.
10/23/21