The Fredösphere

The wifeösphere and I closed out the holiday watching a bit of High Sierra, an old B&W Bogart movie from a low point in his oeuvre.  He plays a gangster pardoned after eight years behind bars.  "I can't wait to find out if the grass is still green."  Sorry, bud; in this film it's all shades of gray.

The director decides to begin with the governor in the "State Capitol" signing the pardon document.  We see him only from the back -- holy cow, it's the old Don't Dare Show the Face of the Executive thing again.  Maybe they want to portray him as Everygovernor of Everystate, but I can't help wondering if there's a bit of misplaced majesty and awe at work.  It reminds me of the light bulb-headed God in Jack Chick cartoons.

It's all downhill from there.  A gangster tells a "dame" to "scram,"  Bogart flouts the law and flaunts his upper gums, and lot's o' bad acting follows.  Henry Travers (you'll remember him as the angel from It's a Wonderful Life -- my least favorite actor from my least favorite movie) shows up as the not very majestic or awesome paterfamilias of a family of Okies fleeing to California.  Astonishingly, no pee-stained mattress is in sight; it's the one cliché they overlooked.  Next, a servile yet cheerful black youth and his little dog provide comic relief.  Oh dear, oh dear.  At this point, if God were not merciful, he would leap from his throne and send bolts of blazing energy from his unseen, unapproachable countenance to consume in unquenchable fire every print, video, and DVD copy ever made of this movie.  Or wait:  maybe not doing that is his way of punishing us.  Boy, this religion stuff sure is complicated.