Sickly Big Mac has planned a big score and paid top dollars to get a governor's pardon for his imprisoned compatriot Roy Earle (Humphrey Bogart). Roy is released and drives to a Californian mountain fishing camp to join his crew, Red and Babe. Babe had picked up dance hall girl Marie (Ida Lupino). Louis Mendoza is the inside man at the hotel. Roy tries to kick out Marie but she convinces him to let her stay. Roy befriends crippled Velma (Joan Leslie) and her grandfather (Henry Travers) who are traveling to LA from their foreclosed farm.This tries a little too hard to humanize Roy with the hard-scrabbled family. The character has grown out of his Mad Dog nickname. The action and the story could be harsher and grittier. Despite some softer round corners, Bogie is Bogie and he makes this good. He is magnetic and this solid crime drama becomes better.

Humphrey Bogart is superb as Mad Dog, an ex-con plotting a Los Angeles jewel heist, becoming involved with two very different women, Ida Lupino and Joan Leslie. Intricately plotted adaptation of W.R. Burnett's book (by Burnett and John Huston!) given stylish, exciting direction by Raoul Walsh. Bogie's gangster persona is still surprisingly fresh at this point, and his tightly-controlled acting here ranks with many of his later, more popular performances; Lupino is also first-rate. A fantastic, influential film in gloriously rich black-and-white. Remade twice: in 1949 as "Colorado Territory" and in 1955 as "I Died a Thousand Times". *** from ****

The movie mentions that the dog belonging to Earl is named "Pard". They seem to imply that it is a strange name. In "The Virginian" (1914), a silent film, they use "Pard" to mean "Partner". Since this is set in the West, it may have been a common term in the past. Sorry, I need 10 lines. There seems no way to avoid getting trapped on the big mountain. It also would seem that the girlfriend, played by Lupino, would be charged today with aiding a criminal. There are several ways that could phrased. It is a shame that the 2 leads did not appear together again. Being trapped up there with no food or water, and no warm clothes at altitude could have been fatal.

I was always interested to see the film that made the leading character actor of Casablanca and The African Queen a star, and it seems it was this one that I found listed in the book 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die, from writer John Huston (The Man Who Would Be King). Basically Roy 'Mad Dog' Earle (Humphrey Bogart) has just been pardoned and released from an eastern prison, but the experienced bank robber is wanted by aged gangster Big Mac (Donald MacBride) to lead and take charge of a California resort casino heist. He starts by driving across the country, meeting the three men that will assist him in the heist at a camp in the mountains, they are resort worker Louis Mendoza (Cornel Wilde), and camp residents 'Red' (Arthur Kennedy), and they are also joined by young woman Marie (Ida Lupino), who after argument is eventually allowed to stay. Marie falls in love with Roy, but he does show any of the same feelings, he instead has affection for young woman Velma (Joan Leslie) who he pays to have an operation on her deformed foot, but she refuses a marriage proposal because she is seeing someone else, so when her fiancé shows up he does turn to Marie and they become lovers. All the plans for the robbery are made and they go ahead with the heist, but they are interrupted by a security guard and it goes wrong, the three assistants ends up in a car accident, Red and Babe are killed, and the police interrogate Mendoza. The police put a search out for 'Mad Dog' for the public to identify and catch him, Roy and Marie leave town together, but they separate so she can get away, and he hides in the Sierra Mountains. It is sunrise when the police catch up to Roy, and he tries to shoot the officers below, and it is when he hears Marie calling for him that they get the chance to shoot him, and they do and he falls to his death, while she sobs and is driven away. Also starring Henry Hull as 'Doc' Banton, It's a Wonderful Life's Henry Travers as Pa and Elisabeth Risdon as Ma. Bogart is usually the charming good guy, here he is a likable criminal, I can see reasons why he became more popular following this film, the film itself does have a bit of cheesy feel and corny story, there could have been a bit more heist action, but it is I suppose paced alright and a not bad crime thriller. Worth watching!