The Criterion Collection has released a content-loaded two-disc 4K digital restoration of Raoul Walsh’s seminal 1941 actioner High Sierra on Blu-ray.

Marking the moment when the gritty gangster films of the 1930s began giving way to the romantic fatalism of 1940s film noir, to quote the notes on the Blu-ray case’s back cover, High Sierra is also notable for containing the star-making performance of Humphrey Bogart.

High Sierra began as a novel by W.R. Burnett, the prolific writer whose first published novel, Little Caesar, filmed in 1930, began the cycle of earlier gangster films that lasted a decade. His film writing career began with 1932’s Scarface. High Sierra was the first of his novels from which he did the adaptation. It was refined by John Huston who received co-screenwriting credit.

Huston would also share screenwriting credit for 1941’s Sergeant York and sole credit for the same year’s The Maltese Falcon, which would begin his storied career as one the screen’s greatest directors.

At the time of the filming of High Sierra, Raoul Walsh, just two years into his twenty-five-year relationship with Warner Brothers, had already established himself as the studio’s go-to director after Michael Curtiz. His first film for the studio had been 1939’s The Roaring Twenties in which Bogart played his standard second banana bad guy to James Cagney. Since finally gaining notice with 1936’s The Petrified Forest in which he supported Leslie Howard and Bette Davis, Bogart had typically been cast in support of the studio’s main gangster stars, Cagney, Edward G. Robinson, and George Raft.

In 1940, Walsh had a major hit with They Drive by Night, starring Raft, Ann Sheridan, Ida Lupino, and Bogart in that order. Raft and Bogart played truck-driving brothers, one of whom is falsely accused of murder. Their roles were equal, but Raft was still the bigger name.

When Raft was cast in High Sierra, the well-read Bogart, who envisioned himself in the lead in the film version of the novel, convinced Raft that the character was another typical gangster role in which his character dies at the end. Raft refused to do the film, and Bogart got the part.

Still wary of Bogart’s star power, Jack Warner refused to allow Bogart sole billing above the title and made him not only share billing with co-star Ida Lupino but gave her billing over him.

With his characteristic punch, Walsh, aided by Burnett’s twisty plot and Huston’s snappy dialogue, created a gripping film in which Bogart’s tough but tender portrayal of a gangster trying to turn his life around proved his star mettle.

Lupino as Bogart’s fellow outcast was the film’s “bad” girl, also desperate to escape her past. Joan Leslie, in her first major role at 18, was the film’s crippled “good” girl who Bogart sets out to help.

The supporting cast was headed by Alan Curtis and Arthur Kennedy as bickering thugs, Henry Travers as Leslie’s father, and Henry Hull as a doctor who fixes Leslie’s club foot. The film’s striking cinematography was by Tony Gaudio (The Adventures of Robin Hood). The film’s editor was Jack Killifer (Bullets or Ballots).

The film was a huge hit. Next up for Bogart would be The Maltese Falcon, which solidified the careers of both Bogart and Huston. The following year would come Casablanca, which would bring Bogart his first Oscar nomination.

Leslie would become an overnight sensation, next starring opposite Gary Cooper in his first Oscar-winning role in the same year’s Sergeant York, followed by her role opposite James Cagney in his Oscar-winning role in 1942’s Yankee Doodle Dandy. In 1943, she would co-star once again with Ida Lupino in The Hard Way for which Lupino would win the New York Film Critics Award for Best Actress.

By the end of the decade, Lupino had become a director citing Walsh, who later directed her in 1946’s The Man I Love, as her mentor. By 1950, Huston will have won two Oscars for 1948’s The Treasure of the Sierra Madre and will have begun work on making a film from Burnett’s The Asphalt Jungle, which will put him in the Oscar spotlight once again.

Walsh remade High Sierra as a western called Colorado Territory in 1949, the same year as his Cagney opus White Heat. It starred Joel McCrea, Virginia Mayo, Dorothy Malone, John Archer, James Mitchell, and Henry Hull, who had a smaller role in the original, in the roles played in that by Bogart, Lupino, Leslie, Curtis, Kennedy, and Travers, respectively.

Not seen in decades, Colorado Territory is presented as an extra on the Blu-ray. Also included are lengthy documentaries on Walsh, Burnett, Bogart, and more.

Kino Lorber has released 2K digitally restored Blu-rays of Robert Aldrich’s Vera Cruz and The Last Sunset.

Previously released on Blu-ray by MGM ten years ago, Vera Cruz looked washed out and muddy, a sorry state-of-affairs for one of the most gorgeously shot westerns of the 1950s. The Kino Lorber release returns the film to its pristine look.

The big selling point of 1954’s Vera Cruz was the casting of two of Hollywood’s biggest stars, Gary Cooper, a recent Oscar winner once again for High Noon, and Burt Lancaster, a recent nominee for the first time for From Here to Eternity. The two live up to their reputations, with Denise Darcel, Cesar Romero, Sarita Montiel, George Macready, Ernest Borgnine, and Charles Bronson in key supporting roles.

1961’s The Last Sunset came along near the end of the popularity of screen westerns with Rock Hudson (Giant) and Kirk Douglas (Spartacus) lending their star power to this curious take on the Oedipus legend featuring Dorothy Malone, Joseph Cotton, and Carol Lynley lending strong support.

This week’s new Blu-ray releases include Old and The Protégé.