I Died a Thousand Times (Blu-ray Review)
Director
Stuart HeislerRelease Date(s)
1955 (September 30, 2025)Studio(s)
Warner Bros. (Warner Archive Collection)- Film/Program Grade: B+
- Video Grade: A
- Audio Grade: A
- Extras Grade: C-
Review
An unnecessary but rather good remake of the classic Raoul Walsh-Humphrey Bogart-Ida Lupino High Sierra (1941), I Died a Thousand Times (1955) is, like the recently reviewed The Prisoner of Zenda (1952), nearly a scene-for-scene redo of the original with only minor changes. (For the record, in-between exists yet another remake, Walsh’s 1948 Western Colorado Territory, included as an extra feature on the 2021 Criterion Blu-ray release of High Sierra.) The almost religiously unaltered to screenplay by W.R. Burnett (from his novel), ignores just how much the world had changed by 1955, with its anachronistic gangster protagonist even less in tune with the times and featuring an Oakie family that might have been neighbors of Tom Joad.
But the cast is mostly excellent, dominated by fresh talent many of whom would become big stars in their own right. Filmed in early, ultra-wide 2.55:1 CinemaScope, this Warner Archive release looks and sounds sensational.
Roy Earle (Jack Palance) is a legendary holdup man sprung from prison by terminally-ill gangster Big Mac (Lon Chaney, Jr.) to lead a half-million-dollar jewel robbery of a Nevada resort hotel. At a mountain cabin hideout in the high sierras, Roy is dismayed to find his partners have a lot of swagger but little experience: Babe Kossuck (Lee Marvin) and Red Hattery (Earl Holliman). Worse, they’ve brought along a dance-hall dame they picked up along the way, Marie Garson (Shelley Winters), whom they fight over, while their inside man at the hotel, Louis Mendoza (Perry Lopez), is a chatty, nervous type.
Marie falls hard for Roy, but he’s in love Velma Goodhue (Lori Nelson), a crippled 19-year-old that Roy met en route, she relocating to California with her grandparents (Ralph Moody and Olive Carey). Pa Goodhue is especially fond of Roy, and Roy is anxious to pay for a surgery to cure Velma’s clubfooted limp, but Pa also realizes that Velma isn’t the innocent maiden Roy thinks she is. Pretty soon, the day of the heist arrives, with every indication that it’s going to end in total disaster.
Even author W.R. Burnett liked this respectable remake. It may overall by inferior to High Sierra, but in most respects comes close to approaching the original and even betters it here and there. The single major failing is the casting Shelley Winters who, needless to say, is no Ida Lupino. The notoriously difficult Winters could be excellent in the hands of a strong director, and/or cast in parts that played to her strengths, but she’s out of her depth here, gratingly whining her way through the part, generating little interest and sympathy. She’s not helped by wardrobe and a hairstyle that makes her even less appealing. Also not very good is Lon Chaney; his alcoholism seemed to widely vary the quality of his performances after 1945. In I Died a Thousand Times he gets his lines out but largely blows this rare meaty role in a major studio picture.
Jack Palance, however, makes an intriguing, highly-watchable contrast to Humphrey Bogart, Palance less world-weary but much more physically intimidating, a grenade with its pin pulled, ready to explode at any moment. At 36, Palance seems a trifle young to be playing Earle, but his committed acting wins out in the end. A student of Michael Chekov, Palance had understudied Marlon Brando during the run of A Streetcar Named Desire, and the one-two punch of Sudden Fear (1952, for which he was nominated for an Oscar) and, especially, Shane (1953), with Palance as one of the Western movie genre’s most iconic bad guys, doubtlessly gave Warner Bros. the idea they could transform him into a superstar just as they had Bogart with High Sierra following The Petrified Forest.
Lori Nelson (Revenge of the Creature) is a good replacement for Joan Leslie’s original; maybe she and Winters should have swapped parts. Certainly, Lee Marvin and Earl Holliman would have changed places had the film been made just a few years later. It’s quite strange to see Marvin playing the more skittish, submissive of the two. Though Winters had been in films going back to 1941, she, Palance, Nelson, Marvin, Holliman, and Lopez were relative newcomers, all making their marks after 1950. Further, in uncredited bits, Dennis Hopper plays a friend of Velma’s at a house party who runs afoul of Roy, while Nick Adams appears briefly but memorably as a nervous bellboy at the hotel. A lot of other busy character types have small uncredited parts, including future Detroit-based movie host Bill Kennedy, who plays the sheriff at the climax.
While even some of the soundstage sets look as if they were constructed using the original film’s set drawings and plans, I Died a Thousand Times has the novelty of Warner Color, CinemaScope, and stereophonic sound, and this adds enormously to the big car chase in the Sierras, with cars fishtailing and police motorcycles slipping and sliding in the snow in the days before front- and 4-wheel drive and snow tires were commonplace. Director Stuart Heisler and cinematographer Ted McCord (East of Eden, The Hanging Tree) use the extra-wide frame well, though some of McCord’s blocking of the actors is awkward.
Warner Archive’s new Blu-ray of I Died a Thousand Times exemplifies the need to reexamine films previously only available panned-and-scanned for TV, or even released on DVD in standard-def. This new video transfer is positively gorgeous—few 2.55:1 CinemaScope titles come close pictorially. Opticals like dissolves (and there are a lot of dissolves in I Died a Thousand Times) are grainier with less vibrant color, but generally the film looks razor-sharp to the point where one can perceive textures imperceptible in all previous TV and home video versions—it’s a pleasure to watch. The DTS-HD Master Audio (2.0 stereo surround) isn’t as aggressive as most early CinemaScope films, but is certainly a significant plus as well. Optional English subtitles are provided on this Region-Free release.
Supplements are limited to the usual pair of year-appropriate cartoons—Hare Brush and Sahara Hare, both starring Bugs Bunny—and a trailer, up-rezzed from standard-definition.
Better than I was expecting, I Died a Thousand Times is a perfectly serviceable and visually and aurally attractive remake. Recommended.
- Stuart Galbraith IV