The Treasure of the Sierra Madre

• Written and Directed by John Huston
• January 14, 1948 (Los Angeles, California) / January 15, 1948 (limited) / January 24, 1948 (US)
• Based on B. Traven’s 1927 novel The Treasure of the Sierra Madre

Two men down on their luck join with an experienced old prospector to search for gold in Mexico.

While a great and entertaining film, The Treasure of the Sierra Madre is a movie about how greed and avarice can corrupt the human soul and that wealth ultimately is fleeting. Even the best intentions will be destroyed by greed. If you cannot see that that’s the message, then you are not paying attention to Howard (Walter Huston) pretty much announces it when he’s introduced into the story.

I do think Howard gives a little too much exposition on so many things. I get that the character is an experienced miner that has found and lost fortunes over time but his information and knowledge dumps are just that. His words also essentially relate the next two hours you are about to watch. Unlike modern films it does not drag down the entire movie but does slow up the movie.

Even though a lantern is hung on the message of the movie, it doesn’t make the narrative less impactful. The characters don’t know it and proceed as such. You can watch the seeds of their breakdown or issues being planted early and it occur in small bits and pieces as the movie continues.

It was until watching this that I realized the broader impact this film had and the cultural references it inspired. “Stinking badges” alone has been repeated/referenced in several films (mostly comedies) and is an obvious acknowledgment of this film. UHF and The Three Amigos jump to mind as the most overt users.

Humphrey Bogart as Fred C. Dobbs is the first main character we meet in The Treasure of the Sierra Madre. Director John Huston spent a great deal of time establishing just how broke Dobbs is and how he spends most of his time begging for money. I’m not sure if all that time was necessary but it’s always a pleasure to see Bogart on the screen. It did provide us with a nice moment where John Houston pulled a Hitchcock though more blatantly so.

Fred Dobbs, the old Howard, and Bob Curtin (Tim Holt) can be seen as three aspects of one person. Howard is the sensible aspect. Bob is the moral aspect or voice that knows what is right. Dobbs on the other hand represents greed and avarice. He’s always working to take and hoard. He may get knocked down and quiet up as agreed often can be but he’s always there to try again. Morality may prevail but until greed is soundly defeated it will work hard to do away with the pull towards good.

Bogart sells the breakdown of his characters as paranoia and the coveting of gold eats away at him. He doesn’t start out as evil but he ends as evil. This works with a message that even good men can go bad. It is a slow yet obvious dissolution.

John Huston filmed this very dramatically. Much of it occurs on sets that blend in nicely with exterior shots all done in black and white. He uses shadow and dramatic lighting to highlight feelings and moments such as when our moral good guy Bob clearly give some thought to letting Dobbs die. It’s a moment of weakness, but he, representing good, does not give into it.

This may border on herecy or sacrilege to some but it could’ve been a little shorter. I’m not against long films. The Ten Commandments is one of my favorite movies and that’s four hours or more. It never feels like four hours. This had some lags in it. The journey to pan the gold took too much time among other moments.

Despite those lags what helps sells the story is genuine emotional impact. The most significant of it is when we are introduced to the character of Cody (Bruce Bennett) even if he is only on screen for a few minutes. The character looks like he’s going to be trouble but ultimately is just a guy trying to make a little something for his family. His disposition solidifies so much of what this movie is trying to say about greed and morality with the actor himself making a character that you actually care about.

Even if I have my complaints about The Treasure of the Sierra Madre the film is excellent overall. It gets more right in comparison to what it gets wrong. It is a great movie with something to say.