There is a school of thought that says Bogart became a big star because of the Maltese Falcon.\u00a0 It was his first role that extended his acting range beyond the gangster parts he had been doing up to that point.\u00a0 And the story was a popular book and John Huston\u2019s script was a pip.<\/p>\n
So, I\u2019m sure Bogart was more than anxious when he had a second chance to work with Huston.\u00a0 The Treasure of the Sierra Madre was once again based on a popular book.\u00a0 And once again Huston\u2019s script is a pip.\u00a0 Bogart is an American named Dobbs in Tampico, Mexico who is broke and looking for an opportunity to make some money.\u00a0 After some difficulty collecting back-wages he teams up with two other Americans.\u00a0 Walter Huston, John Huston\u2019s actual father, plays an old gold prospector Howard and Tim Holt is Curtin who hopes to make a stake before returning to the United States.\u00a0 The three men discuss what it would take to make a prospecting expedition to the Sierra Madre.\u00a0 By an amazing coincidence Bogart wins the amount they need off of a lottery ticket and donates it to the expedition.\u00a0 On the train ride at the outset of the journey to the Sierra Madre, the partners encounter bandits.\u00a0 This is followed by a long trek through jungles and desert and mountains.\u00a0 And just as Dobbs and Curtin have become discouraged and want to give up the search Howard mocks them with the news that they\u2019ve been surrounded by gold for the last day but they were too ignorant to see it.\u00a0 The partners get to work and start a mining operation that rewards their hard work with generous amounts of gold.\u00a0 And at this point we begin to see the destructive effect of greed and mistrust.\u00a0 Pretty quickly Dobbs becomes dangerously suspicious of his partners and all remnants of amicable relations evaporate and all that is left is the business of harvesting the gold.\u00a0 During this time there are episodes involving a claim jumper and later the bandits return.\u00a0 A very well-known exchange occurs between the head bandit and the partners.\u00a0 The bandit is pretending to be a policeman and when asked to show his badge he sputters, \u201cBadges? \u00a0Badges?\u00a0 We don\u2019t need no stinking badges!\u201d \u00a0The return journey also contains some interesting episodes that eventually split up the partners and leads to open warfare between Dobbs and Curtin.\u00a0 For the better part of the movie we\u2019ve been watching as Fred C. Dobbs slowly descends into gold madness.\u00a0 Now he reaches the point of attempting murder.\u00a0 The end of the movie follows the last scenes where we learn the fate of the partners, the bandits and the gold.<\/p>\n
For me this movie is an almost perfect gem of a tale.\u00a0 It has an interesting blend of humor, adventure and a study of human nature.\u00a0 Toward the end, Bogart is almost over the top in his manic portrayal of Dobbs but he is an interesting character.\u00a0 Tim Holt plays the most sympathetic character as Curtin but without a doubt, Walter Huston steals the show from everyone else as the old prospector Howard.\u00a0 His character is colorful, glib, humorous and just plain engaging.<\/p>\n
I highly recommend this movie for everyone.\u00a0 It\u2019s a classic and timelessly entertaining.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
There is a school of thought that says Bogart became a big star because of the Maltese Falcon.\u00a0 It was his first role that extended<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[239,238,237],"tags":[1562,1563,43,38,1565,1561,1564],"class_list":["post-5388","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-movie-reviews","category-classic-movie-reviews","category-reviews","tag-humphrey-bogart","tag-john-huston","tag-movie-review","tag-review","tag-tim-holt","tag-treasure-of-the-sierra-madre","tag-walter-huston"],"yoast_head":"\n