Review of The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948) by Jonathan H — 07 Aug 2012

Having had his day as an idolized star and romantic leading man, Humphrey Bogart came to a crossroads in his career and decided to get down to the serious business of acting. For eighteen years it had usually been Bogart playing Bogart in various shadings, but once "Bogey" was gone, in his place was an older and far less romantic figure, one who found new challenges and was able to meet most of them successfully. This new phase of his continued growth began with a story of three men in search of gold, and ended up being the finest performance of his career.

Although The Treasure of the Sierra Madre is indisputably one of Bogart's best films, it was co-star Walter Huston who won an Academy Award as did the movie's director and scenarist, the brilliant John Huston. Based on a novel by the mysterious B. Traven, the film told a riveting tale which explored the degenerative effects of encroaching greed, distrust, and hatred on three prospectors who team up to search for gold in Mexico. Bogart's Fred C. Dobbs is an amazingly complex creation whose slow disintegration into paranoia was brilliantly managed on Huston. He is a born loser with no potential for change in sight. Suspicious, unfeeling, savage, and easily corruptible, he seems clearly destined for a tragic fate almost from our first glimpse of him.

However, it is the director's father, Walter Huston, who literally stole the picture as Howard, a wise old toothless codger who knew all along what would happen and took it all in stride, kicking up his heels and having a marvelous time. Life can't surprise him any more. He's already had successes and failures enough for one lifetime. Like a faithful dog, he's along for the thrill of the hunt, and should there be another pot of gold at the end of this rainbow, well, that's just a bonus.

It is mainly the interaction of these three men from their first meeting and uneasy partnership through their final confrontation that made The Treasure of the Sierra Madre an everlasting classic and one of Warner Brothers' triumphs of the forties...