Treasure of the Sierra Madre: 1948

Initial release date: 1948
Director: John Huston
DVD release date: September 30, 2003
Story: B. Traven
Music: Max Steiner


   Here we have yet another inspiration of cinema to contribute to the Indiana Jones films.  "Treasure of the Sierra Madre" is an adventure film, that focuses more on the reality that is digging for gold, surviving out in the wild, and trying to make a living off of this bountiful restitution.  In a sense, it is much more than a film about gold fever, because there really is no such thing.  "Gold fever" is not the longing to get rich quick.  It's survival in every sense of the word.  The toil of life itself, and the excuse that, someday everyone goes a little loony from the deprivation of a simple life.


   Like in most of the films he's done, Humphrey Bogart is wonderful in the portrait of his roles...or in this case...a psychopath.  Yes it's true, every other minuet he's blaming his friends, and accusing everybody of stabbing him in the back.  This is his character ark, and it is simply flawless.  He starts out as a wandering, squandering, down-on-his-luck American in a small Mexican town, to a wandering, hallucinating, soon-to-be-down-on-his-luck, American, on the outskirts of a small Mexican town.  There is a scene where his character, Dobbs, had just killed another man.  He says, "Conscience, what a thing.  If you believe you've got a conscience it'll pester ya to death.  But if you don't believe ya got one, what could it do to ya?"  he finds out soon enough.


   This movie was a wonderful western and well worth the genre.  It's a very real film, meaning that it focuses on reality being the villain.  Everyone then believed that digging for gold was difficult, but like this...never!  It gives away allot of new information about digging for gold, as well as advice when avoiding the hazards that come along with it.  There are three characters in this film which each symbolize a different kind of preparedness for this kind of job.  Tim Holt's character symbolizes the one that is willing to learn from his mistake and eager to learn.  Bogart's character symbolizes the reckless one.  The one seduced by the mountain that gave them the gold, and the one who paid the price for it.  And finally, Walter Hutson plays the experienced one.  The character who's already been through everything, and when the day is done he has no problem laughing about it.  But believe me, it takes a pretty experianced soul to laugh at the dangers that were right on their tails the whole journey through the treasure of the sierra madre!


 8/10

Watch the Trailer Here

Next Review:  West Side Story 1961