The Treasure of the Sierra Madre

One of the greatest films ever made is Greed. Produced in 1924 by the brilliant director Erich von Stroheim, it concerns three people whose lives are destroyed when they become obsessed with the money that one of them wins in a lottery. The original version of the film ran over eight hours, but MGM brutally cut it down to two-and-a-half hours and the rest of von Stroheim’s masterpiece has been lost.

The film gives Bogart one of his greatest roles as Fred C. Dobbs.

Another great film about the same subject is 1948’s The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, directed by John Huston, and starring Humphrey Bogart, Tim Holt, and Huston’s father Walter Huston. Like Greed it is a certifiable masterpiece about the heart of darkness that awaits men who trade their lives and their sanity in the quest for great wealth. Adapted from an adventure novel by B. Traven, the film gives Bogart one of his greatest roles as Fred C. Dobbs, a down-on-his-luck American, drifting around Mexico, who resorts to begging in order to eat and to afford a place to sleep. Along the way, he makes the acquaintance of two other Americans, also down on their luck. One of them is an old man who regales them with tales of his glory days as a gold prospector before he fell on hard times.

But then good fortune winks in their direction. Dobbs happens to win a local lottery, and he and his new-found friends decide to use the money to really strike it rich. They invest the money in buying the food and equipment they will need to prospect for gold in the Sierra Madre Mountains.

Their journey into the mountains is a backbreaking ordeal. But when the old man finally shows them the gold that’s right under their feet, his young companions throw themselves into the painstaking process of digging the treasure out of the earth. But the more they dig, over many months, it becomes evident that there’s a price for them to pay. There is the relentless sun. There are bandits with guns. And most of all there is suspicion and greed, which pits them against each other. When this happens, Bogart’s brilliance as an actor takes over. The look in his eyes is terrifying as he slips off the mask of friendship and trust that he’s been wearing to this point and underneath is another face. It’s that of a dark mercenary who’s been waiting for the right moment when he can reach out and take all the gold for himself.

The Treasure of the Sierra Madre is a stunning work of art and studio entertainment. I give it four out of four stars. The quest for gold and the scourge of greed has rarely been made so palpable.