BITING THE DUST

Yesterday was a fine windy day to watch an old movie on TV, so I picked High Sierra, a 1941 crime drama starring Humphrey Bogart and Ida Lupino. I watched probably 15 minutes of the beginning, then fell asleep, but woke up in time for the grand finale. And grand, it was!

Bogie, the meanie, is racing his getaway vehicle up a steep Mt. Whitney dirt road. Behind him in pursuit are four police motorcyclists and a parade of cop cars. It is just the coolest chase scene. With each switchback, I was just certain someone was going to fly off a cliff, and Big Bore was having one of his famous high altitude driving panic attacks. “Hang on to that steering wheel, Bogie, and quit looking back!!”

Eventually the road ends and the villain has to start hot-footing it up the rocks, along with his arsenal of guns. The good guys wait it out below, while one sharpshooter stakes out Bogie from a higher vantage point. Long story short but Ida and her adorable dog Pard come on the scene. The pooch breaks free and starts running to man’s best friend, Bogie, who recognizes the bark, stands up, and “Ka-pow!” The sharpshooter gets his man, who dramatically bounces down the craggy mountain, thanks to a great stuntman. The cops and Ida skeedaddle to the landing site.

“You just wait,” I told Big Bore. "He’s going to have some final words for her, like, 'Here’s looking at you, kid.'”

“No way he survived that fall,” BB predicted, and he was right. Rats.

I was so impressed with the little bit of the movie I saw that I got on the Internet to read about its making. The best part was about the stuntman who kept doing the death fall over and over again, wanting to get it to look just right. The director, feeling like the poor guy was being put in too much peril, finally told him to forget it. “It’s good enough for those 25-cent customers!”

Next time High Sierra comes on the tube, I plan to get the rest of my quarter’s worth of viewing pleasure and stay awake.