1955's "I Died a Thousand Times" was a rather lukewarm second remake of the 1941 "High Sierra" (preceded by Raoul Walsh's 1949 "Colorado Territory"), from the same author, W. R. Burnett, best remembered for an early credit on Howard Hawks' 1932 "Scarface." Casting Jack Palance in Humphrey Bogart's role of paroled convict Roy Earle was a good choice, as well as the color scenery on location in Lone Pine as well as Mt. Whitney (shooting titles were "Jagged Edge" and "A Handful of Clouds"), but the production sinks like a stone with the insufferable Shelley Winters as a more whiny moll than the lovely Ida Lupino. The plot is virtually identical, Earle sprung from the slammer by dying gangster Big Mac (Lon Chaney) to headline a Tropico hotel jewel heist, going up against greenhorn henchmen, a dame, and a bad luck pooch named Pard, while alternately taking a shine to a pretty young girl with a club foot (Lori Nelson). An undeniable asset for the viewer is spotting the huge number of up and coming stars in the making, from veterans Dub Taylor and Lee Marvin, to newcomers Earl Holliman, Nick Adams (as a nervous bellhop), and Dennis Hopper (in his screen debut). In for only one scene as the doomed Big Mac, with a bad heart and shot kidneys, Lon Chaney is clearly typecast in drunk mode, just as he was playing Robert Mitchum's father in Stanley Kramer's still unreleased "Not As a Stranger," garnering sympathy as only he can as a man facing death with a defiant shrug and another slug.
Review of I Died a Thousand Times
