Review of The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948) by Antonius B — 23 Mar 2018

Humphrey Bogart, Walter Huston, and Tim Holt are three guys who are down on their luck and turn to prospecting for gold in a rugged part of Mexico known for its bandits. You can practically feel the heat and sweat through the screen, and Bogart's face is covered in grime for most of the movie. He turns in a brilliant performance, and it's right from the beginning, when he splashes water in a kid's face for harassing him about buying a lottery ticket.

Walter Huston, directed by his son John, is fantastic as well, as the experienced old man who can scale hills like a goat, and who knows human nature after having seen men around gold over his lifetime. Bogart and Holt's characters seem so reasonable, but his words at the beginning are an omen. The way John Huston tells the story, though, is far from simple. Bogart's evolution through the film is intense and yet nuanced. It could easily have become a caricature, but didn't.

I had a few small criticisms, though they didn't stop me from enjoying the film. It seemed to me that the gunfight scenes fell into old clichés, and the music was too intrusive at times. Also, the scene of the white man reviving the native boy, much to a crowd's appreciation as if he were a savior, seems like an overdone Caucasian fantasy to me.

On the other hand, the tight shots on the natives, as well as the frequent use of untranslated Spanish throughout the film, were fantastic. I also loved how it was shot on location in Mexico, as that really translated in the cinematic experience. The dialogue throughout the film is great, and it's of course famous for its line from the leader of the bandits (Alfonso Bedoya), who says "Badges? We ain't got no badges. We don't need no badges! I don't have to show you any stinkin' badges!".

I really enjoyed some rather stark events that were rather shocking, but what really made the film for me was its commentary on humanity. We see the inevitability of fighting over wealth play out in several ways. We see greed become so strong that paranoia grows like a cancer in the soul. And we see the enlightened reaction to it all, borne from having become wise with age, and that is, to understand your fellow man and laugh at life's misfortunes.