Comments on: Raoul Walsh Remakes Himself

By: TCM's Classic Movie Blog

TCM's Classic Movie Blog — Tue, 17 Aug 2010 18:02:10 +0000

[...] Kehr’s erudite readers also took up the challenge, especially Blake Lucas, who wrote an essay-long breakdown of Walsh’s career. Kehr promises an essay in his eagerly awaited collection “When Movies Mattered”, slated for a spring release, and pointed to a forthcoming biography, “The True Adventures of Raoul Walsh”, by Marilyn Ann Moss. I’m adding my rather undigested thoughts here, and will contribute more in the coming weeks the more I see. I watched The Big Trail (1930), The Strawberry Blonde (1941), Battle Cry (1955), and The Tall Men (1955) in quick succession with comment below, and my bits on Me and My Gal (1932) and Colorado Territory (1949) are here and here. [...]

By: StacyB

StacyB — Fri, 12 Feb 2010 23:00:12 +0000

Nice post — but I want to mention that High Sierra has another distinction – it’s referenced in John Berryman’s Dream Song #9:

… therefore she get on the Sheriff’s mike & howl
“Come down, come down.”
Therefore he un-budge, furious. (…)

A mild crack: a far rifle. Bogart’s duds
truck back to Wardrobe. Fancy the brain from hell
held out so long. Let go.

Godspeed to Henry and Mr.Bones. Poetry and the movies — they just go together.

By: R. Emmet Sweeney

R. Emmet Sweeney — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 14:56:29 +0000

Rick – the Warner Archive release of COLORADO TERRITORY is the best it’s going to get, I suspect. If you love the film definitely pick it up, but the print is pretty beat up. It’s definitely watchable though.

And I have read EACH MAN IN HIS TIME, passinthru, and you’re right, it’s delightfully ridiculous. He turned his autobiography into his own Raoul Walsh adventure movie. It’s worthless as history but essential in understanding his artistic personality.

I haven’t seen the Stuart Heisler remake of HIGH SIERRA, Steve-O, but it sounds…intriguing.

By: Rick

Rick — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 05:56:40 +0000

I don’t know how “Colorado Territory” could be missed. It is one of Joel McCrea’s best performances. “High Sierra” does have some problems with its story line, but Mr. Walsh corrected much of them in “Colorado”. Both films have doom written all over them from the beginning. In my humble opinion, “Colorado Territory” is the better film. I hope that Warners releases a good DVD somethime soon.

By: kingrat

kingrat — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 00:59:57 +0000

Thanks for a great post. We have the same objections to High Sierra, and you make me eager to see Colorado Territory. High Sierra also has a cute doggie, Pard, and a very stereotyped comic African-American. The racial humor is painfully dated. All that and club-footed Velma too! The Bogart and Lupino parts of High Sierra are really good; in fact, I’d forgotten about all the other stuff until I recently saw the film again.

By: passing thru

passing thru — Wed, 10 Feb 2010 11:39:37 +0000

The title of this post is particularly perfect if you’ve read Walsh’s astonishingly entertaining pack-of-lies autobiography Each Man in His Time.

By: Jenni

Jenni — Wed, 10 Feb 2010 03:33:25 +0000

Makes me wonder how many other directors re-did an earlier movie plot with a different cast and setting. Interesting post. Hope TCM will show Colorado Territory, as I’ve seen High Sierra already.

By: Steve-O

Steve-O — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 21:25:22 +0000

you should throw I Died a Thousand Times into the mix too.

By: Dan-O

Dan-O — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 20:50:03 +0000

I have an aversion to the warner archive but if and when i break down Colorado will be one of my first purchases. Shame its release has been handled like a dereliction of duty; I’ve seen High Sierra a dozen or so times and agree somewhat about the awkwardness of the ‘high school crush’ that seems to splay forward from the scenes between Bogart and Joan Leslie. However I’m not in agreement that it renders the movie out of its classic status.
In fact, it illuminates me to the fact that Earle is truly a man out of his elements — where he belongs has passed him by, with younger and quicker guns; where he wants to be is almost a different kind of criminality — yearning for youth and a virgin teen who isn’t all she appears.
If it was Huston who scribbled out this sequence, I say he did it as finely as he could. It does not genuinely meshes with the holdup scenes, but I think that is towards the point. The world is leaving Earle, and the two portions he is clinging to are tearing him apart.
Can’t comment on Colorado due to having not seen it, but am a big fan of McCrae and Mayo. Thanks for the great review!