"I Died A Thousand Times" is a very faithful remake of Raoul Walsh's "High Sierra" (1941) which famously starred Humphrey Bogart as the professional bank robber Roy Earle. This time around, Jack Palance plays the role in a style that's far more menacing than Bogart's portrayal and the most striking differences between this film and its predecessor is that it contains less sentimentality and is presented in colour and CinemaScope. The presence of bright colours and numerous open spaces is interesting because they give the movie a visual style that's radically different to most 1950s film noirs and pre-empt some of the characteristics which would later become prevalent in neo-noirs.
After crime boss Big Mac (Lon Chaney Jr.) pulls a few strings to secure the release of Roy Earle from prison, the experienced bank robber travels across country to take charge of planning and carrying out the robbery of some jewellery from a Californian resort hotel. On his way, he meets the Goodhue family who are travelling to L.A. and the attractive 19-year-old Velma (Lori Nelson) catches his eye.
When he arrives at the group of cabins where he's supposed to stay until the hotel heist is carried out, he meets Babe (Lee Marvin) and Red (Earl Holliman) who have been hired as his accomplices and Marie Garson (Shelley Winters), an ex-dance-hall girl who Babe had recently brought to the camp. Earle is unimpressed with his accomplices who he immediately recognises as being inexperienced and unreliable and also disapproves of Marie staying with the group. He is pleased, however, by the presence of a mongrel dog called Pard despite being warned that the dog had brought bad luck to his three previous owners.
Earle meets the Goodhue family again by chance when he's in the process of preparing for the heist and on discovering that Velma has a deformed foot arranges for her to have an expensive operation to enable her to walk normally again. Despite being warned that she already has a wealthy young boyfriend, Earle hopes that his kindness will make her fall in love with him. Her operation is a great success but Earle's plan fails as Velma firmly rejects his proposal of marriage. The gang go ahead with the hotel robbery which goes disastrously wrong and things don't improve later as Earle gets shot and double-crossed before the story eventually reaches its spectacular conclusion.
A combination of factors contribute to the sense that Roy Earle's endeavours after he left prison were always destined to fail. The misjudgements he made relating to Velma and Pard were down to his own poor judgement but the selection of his accomplices and the circumstances that led to him being double-crossed were clearly outside of his control. Jack Palance is impressive as the tough criminal and the supporting cast is also consistently good.
"I Died A Thousand Times" won't eclipse "High Sierra" in the minds of anyone who's seen the original movie but it's still an interesting remake and judged purely on its own merits, worthy of positive recognition.
After crime boss Big Mac (Lon Chaney Jr.) pulls a few strings to secure the release of Roy Earle from prison, the experienced bank robber travels across country to take charge of planning and carrying out the robbery of some jewellery from a Californian resort hotel. On his way, he meets the Goodhue family who are travelling to L.A. and the attractive 19-year-old Velma (Lori Nelson) catches his eye.
When he arrives at the group of cabins where he's supposed to stay until the hotel heist is carried out, he meets Babe (Lee Marvin) and Red (Earl Holliman) who have been hired as his accomplices and Marie Garson (Shelley Winters), an ex-dance-hall girl who Babe had recently brought to the camp. Earle is unimpressed with his accomplices who he immediately recognises as being inexperienced and unreliable and also disapproves of Marie staying with the group. He is pleased, however, by the presence of a mongrel dog called Pard despite being warned that the dog had brought bad luck to his three previous owners.
Earle meets the Goodhue family again by chance when he's in the process of preparing for the heist and on discovering that Velma has a deformed foot arranges for her to have an expensive operation to enable her to walk normally again. Despite being warned that she already has a wealthy young boyfriend, Earle hopes that his kindness will make her fall in love with him. Her operation is a great success but Earle's plan fails as Velma firmly rejects his proposal of marriage. The gang go ahead with the hotel robbery which goes disastrously wrong and things don't improve later as Earle gets shot and double-crossed before the story eventually reaches its spectacular conclusion.
A combination of factors contribute to the sense that Roy Earle's endeavours after he left prison were always destined to fail. The misjudgements he made relating to Velma and Pard were down to his own poor judgement but the selection of his accomplices and the circumstances that led to him being double-crossed were clearly outside of his control. Jack Palance is impressive as the tough criminal and the supporting cast is also consistently good.
"I Died A Thousand Times" won't eclipse "High Sierra" in the minds of anyone who's seen the original movie but it's still an interesting remake and judged purely on its own merits, worthy of positive recognition.