George Raft was intended to play Roy Earle, but Humphrey Bogart, who took a great interest in playing the role, managed to talk Raft out of accepting it. Raoul Walsh tried to persuade Raft otherwise but Raft did not want his character to die at the end of the film.
Raft turned down High Sierra because it was another gangster part, despite the excellent source material and Raoul Walsh directing.
Earlier, Paul Muni had rejected the role for the same reason, but Muni was a proper actor, well established in a variety of parts (including prestige biopics) and Raft wasn’t.
Bogart had to persuade director Walsh to hire him for the role, because Walsh envisioned Bogart as a supporting player rather than a leading man.
It was writer John Huston who saw potential in Bogart that others in the studio did not perceive. Huston would cast him as the lead in his feature directing debut, The Maltese Falcon, which was released several months after High Sierra, in October, and would also be a critical and commercial hit.
Ida Lupino had received good publicity in connection with her performance in They Drive by Night, and this helped producer Mark Hellinger to convince executive producer Hal Wallis that Lupino be billed over Bogart, who to that point had only starred in “B” movies; in later releases of the film, Bogart got top billing.
As is known, Bogart’s portrayal of Roy Earle in High Sierra made him a star, and changed the way Warner Bros. saw him.
Pard, the dog of Bogart’s character Roy, was portrayed by Zero.
Zero was erroneously believed by some to be canine actor Terry (Toto from The Wizard of Oz) and also erroneously rumored to be Bogart’s own dog.
Newspapers of the period, though, indicate that Zero was owned by Rennie Renfro, who was one of the most significant supplier of dog actors in Hollywood at the time.
In the final scene, Buster Wiles, a stunt performer, plays Roy’s corpse. His hand is filled with biscuits to encourage Pard to lick Roy’s hand.
Many key shots of the movie were filmed on location in the Sierra Nevada, including Big Bear Lake and Lake Arrowhead in California.
In a climactic scene, Bogart’s character slid 90 feet (27 m) down a mountainside to his just reward. His stunt double, Wiles, bounced a few times going down the mountain and wanted another take to do better. “Forget it,” said Raoul Walsh. “It’s good enough for the 25-cent customers.”
Special effects were by Byron Haskin and H. F. Koenekamp.
