The Treasure of the Sierra Madre

Truly great acting performances are rare. It requires so much more than a capable actor to play the role. The character must be well written, the director must pace the performance appropriately and choose the right takes, and of course the actor must inhabit the person they are playing completely. When all these factors come together it is a wonder to watch. When you get two great performances in the same movie, well, now you're talking classic. Such is the case with the 1948 film The Treasure of the Sierra Madre. This John Huston directed masterpiece is the tale of a search for gold. It has gunfights, brawls, distant exotic lands, bandidos, Indians and of course treasure. All the trappings of an adventure film. Yet under Huston's Oscar winning direction (and screenplay) it becomes so much more.

In Tampico, Mexico we find two down on their luck American men. After running into an old prospector and putting together a little money, the three decide to head off in search of gold. The three pals strike it rich and everything seems to be looking up. Then gold begins to cast its spell. The three former friends become suspicious and violent in the pursuit of wealth. Can they hold together long enough to keep from killing each other?

Humphrey Bogart, Tim Holt, and John Huston's dad Walter Huston play the three treasure hunters. Holt, a relative unknown, holds up well against two career defining performances by all-time screen legends. Holt plays Curtin, a young American who is seduced by gold, but has a strong moral center. Walter Huston won his only Oscar for this performance as the wise old prospector named Howard. Huston's Howard has been down this path before and pulls out every trick in the book to keep his younger companions on the straight and narrow. His grounded, realistic, and funny performance provide both the reality and the levity needed for this film to work.

The Treasure of the Sierra Madre benefits from wonderful work by all involved, including the best performance of Walter Huston's career, and yet this film belongs to Bogie. From the opening moments to his final scene, he captures the viewer. His slow migration from sanity and morality to madness is a pleasure to watch. Bogie plays Fred C. Dobbs, a man desperate for a break who insists that he would only take what he needs. Bogart has played mad men before, but Dobbs is more than just a crazy. He is a man being driven to insanity, and all the peaks and valleys that accompany that. Dobbs has to be funny, scary, greedy, proud, ashamed, honorable, dishonorable, and most of all tragic at different moments in the film. Bogart lays it all out there and then John Huston spliced it together into one of the most fascinating characters ever put up on the silver screen.



This movie is one of my all-time favorites. The theme of greed is timeless and well done here, there are some iconic movie moments (including one of the most frequently misquoted lines in history), and the spectacular Bogart performance make it a must see.

27/30