I Died a Thousand Times

`Mad Dog' Earle is back, along with his sad-sack moll Marie, and that fickle clubfoot Velma. So are Babe and Red, Doc and Big Mac, and even the scenery-chewing mutt Pard. The only thing missing is a good reason for remaking Raoul Walsh's High Sierra 14 years later without rethinking a line or a frame, and doing so with talent noticeably a rung or two down the ladder from that in the original. (Instead of Walsh we get Stuart Heisler, for Humphrey Bogart we get Jack Palance, for Ida Lupino Shelley Winters, and so on down through the credits.) The only change is that, this time, instead of black-and-white, it's in Warnercolor; sadly, there are those who would count this an improvement.

I Died A Thousand Times may be unnecessary – and inferior – but at least it's not a travesty; the story still works on its own stagy terms. Earle (Palance), fresh out of the pen near Chicago, drives west to spearhead a big job masterminded by ailing kingpin Lon Chaney, Jr. – knocking over a post mountain resort. En route, he almost collides with a family of Oakies, when he's smitten with their granddaughter; the smiting holds even when he discovers she's lame. Arriving at the cabins where the rest of gang holes up, he finds amateurish hotheads at one another's throats as well as Winters, who throws herself at him (as does the pooch). Biding time until they get a call from their inside man at the hotel, Palance (to Winter's chagrin) offers to pay for an operation to cure the girl's deformity, a gesture that backfires. Then, the surgical strike against the resort turns into a bloodbath. On the lam, Palance moves higher into the cold Sierras....

It's an absorbing enough story, competently executed, that lacks the distinctiveness Walsh and his cast brought to it in 1941, the year Bogie, with this role and that of Sam Spade in the Maltese Falcon, became a star. And one last, heretical note: Those mountains do look gorgeous in color.

Pure mystery, you never know what's next in this film. In fact I'm going to keep silent about everything I know, because if you know anything about this film before you see it, it's just not as good.

Once you start the climax filled beginning of this film you just can't move away. It was co-written by the man who co-wrote Tod Browning's Freaks. I swear if you take the 70 + minutes to watch this film, your life will never be the same.

On a scale of one to ten, this film gets an EIGHT! A classic, a MUST see!

This is a literal remake of Bogart's High Sierra. The same roads, towns and even on the same rocks where High Sierra was made. It is scene-for-scene the same movie. It is almost uncanny in that respect. I felt deja vu all the way through.

On the plus side the wide screen production and beautiful color are worthwhile, as is the good acting here which I think is equal to the original but that is a matter of each viewer's taste.

Lon Chaney Jr. is terrific in his role and more than holds his own opposite the usually scene-stealing Palance. Also a plus is a classic brute thug Lee Marvin performance. You also get very young Nick Adams, Dennis Hopper and Perry Lopez doing good work.

Lone Pine, Whitney Portal Road and the Sierras never looked better and they are the main reason you might want to watch this if you are vulnerable to being put off by the striking literal remake nature of this film project.

Roy Earle is a professional criminal--one of the toughest and best at his job. When he is unexpectedly released from prison, it is because someone big wanted a big heist and they pulled strings to get him. On his way to the location of his new partners up in the Sierras, he meets a very poor family and befriends them. He also later befriends a cute little dog. Both these acts of kindness are very atypical for such a hardened man and, sadly, BOTH end up causing him nothing but grief in the end.

I am a film purist when it comes to remakes. My opinion has always been that if the original film is great, it shouldn't be remade--remakes are only for films with SERIOUS flaws that can corrected in the remake. So, I am a VERY difficult sell for a film like "I Died a Thousand Times", as it's a remake both of the classic Bogart picture "High Sierra" as well as Joel McCrea's "Colorado Territory"==and both films have a higher IMDb rating as well.

"I Died a Thousand Times" turns out to be an extremely well made film--mostly because it is practically an exact copy of "High Sierra" and because Jack Palance was quite nice in the lead. The only major differences is the wonderful color film stock--it looks great because of the wonderful mountain locations. As for the acting, it's about on par with the original. So, if it offers no real major advantage, why not just see the original--especially since it stars Humphrey Bogart and Ida Lupino and is a classic. This 1955 version could have become a classic--if the story had been original. Good but see the original!

Going into this, I didn't know it was a remake, but within 10 minutes it was clear. Almost exactly a beat-for-beat remake of HIGH SIERRA. It's in color and widescreen, not that that adds much... the original film didn't have great cinematography, but the more claustrophobic frame gave it a little extra tension. Also, they swapped out a black stereotype for a Mexican stereotype. I guess that's supposed to be progress. Other than that, it really is practically identical to the original. The major difference, of course, is casting. I like Jack Palance, but he doesn't have the world-weariness or charm of Bogart. Likewise, I'm very fond of Shelley Winters, but what she does best is playing pathetic, and this character can't be pathetic. You just end up wanting Palance to ditch her. I don't want to be too harsh on this film, though. It's just that I felt like I'd already seen it (twice, even) and the update doesn't do any real updating. A competent but pointless endeavor, stick with Bogart and Lupino.