I Died a Thousand Times

I Died a Thousand Times is a 1955 American CinemaScope Warnercolor film noir directed by Stuart Heisler. The drama stars Jack Palance as paroled bank robber Roy Earle, and Shelley Winters. It co-stars Lori Nelson, Lee Marvin and Gonzalez Gonzalez, with Lon Chaney, Earl Holliman, Perry Lopez, Richard Davalos and Howard St. John^[1]

I Died a Thousand Times is a scene-by-scene remake of the 1941 crime noir High Sierra, which was based upon a novel by W. R. Burnett and starred Humphrey Bogart as Earle. Between the two gangster films, the story had also been transformed into the 1949 Western Colorado Territory, with Joel McCrea.

Roy "Mad Dog" Earle, an aging bank robber, intends to pull off one last heist before retiring. Sprung from prison by crime boss Big Mac, Earle agrees to plan the robbery of a resort hotel. His partners include the hotheaded Babe Kossuck, easy-going Red Hattery, and an "inside man" at the hotel, Louis Mendoza. Along for the ride is Marie Garson, a dance-hall girl whom Babe recently met.

Marie falls in love with Earle, but he is more interested in Velma Goodhue, the club-footed granddaughter of farmer Pa Goodhue whom Earle earlier befriended. Intending to use his share of the loot to pay for Velma's needed operation, Earle goes through with the robbery, only to be thwarted by the ineptitude of his gang, the treachery of the late Big Mac's successors, and the fickle Velma. With the still faithful Marie by his side, Earle makes a desperate escape into the Sierra Nevada, where a police sniper shoots him down.

W. R. Burnett called the film "a better picture" than High Sierra because he "cleaned up the script" from the original, cutting it down and shortening it. "It’s a much better picture, script-wise, although not pictorially, because Raoul Walsh did a hell of a job. Stuart Heisler is also a fine director; he never gets the credit he deserves. But those people! Who gives a damn what happens to Shelley Winters? Or Jack Palance, for that matter?"^[2]

Algernon, the stereotypical, comedy-relief character played by black actor Willie Best in the original film High Sierra was replaced by Chico, a Mexican stereotype played by Gonzalez Gonzalez.

Although they have no scenes together, the only times Nick Adams and Dennis Hopper appeared in the same film, were as bit players at the start of their film careers in this feature as well as in another 1955 release, Rebel Without a Cause.

Bosley Crowther of The New York Times did not like the remake, specifically the screenplay and its inadvertent message, and wrote "Somehow it isn't quite as touching as it was fourteen years ago. Not by a lot-—and the trouble is not wholly Mr. Palance...But the reason this film is not so touching is because it is antique and absurd—-the kind of glorification of the gunman that was obsolescent when High Sierra was made. It is an insult to social institutions and to public intelligence to pull this old mythological hero out of the archives and set him on a mountain top again. The pretense is so blunt and sentimental that it makes the whole thing a total cliché. And the acting does not greatly improve it...It is obvious that High Sierra has come to pretty low ground."^[3]

In 2004, film critic Dennis Schwartz wrote "It's a remake that was hardly needed, but at least it keeps things the same as the novel and gives the viewer a chance to observe Jack Palance in the role Bogie made classic and Shelley Winters in Ida Lupino's role. Though both actors acquit themselves well, there's still no comparison with the original legendary actors. I have a thing about remakes of classics, believing there's no point to make them...I had no problems with the pic, in fact it works rather well. If it weren't an unnecessary remake I would think more highly of it."^[4]

The film been shown on the TCM feature film series Noir Alley with Eddie Muller.

• List of American films of 1955

• I Died a Thousand Times at the AFI Catalog of Feature Films
• I Died a Thousand Times at IMDb
• I Died a Thousand Times at the TCM Movie Database (archived version)
• I Died a Thousand Times film scene on YouTube
• I Died a Thousand Times at Rotten Tomatoes