Movie Review - The Treasure of the Sierra Madre

The Treasure of the Sierra Madre

The only reason I wanted to see the movie was because of Humphrey Bogart and it was a good experience watching him perform middle aged paranoid Fred Dobbs. The movie is a film adaptation of B. Traven’s novel of the same name in which a middle aged down-and-outer with a younger man(played by Tim Holts) joins hands with a fast talking experienced old-timer(played by Walter Huston) to try their lucks in finding gold in the mountains of Sierra Madre. The story will seem an obsolete affair to someone of this era but it’s not the theme of the story which captures one’s attention but the sequences in the story and the stellar performances by Walter Huston and Humphrey Bogart. Director John Huston has done a good job in bringing out one of the best performances by Bogart and his father Walter Huston. In my opinion Walter Huston has outshone Bogart in many a places. Bogart gets a chance in the last half an hour of the movie and he does create an impact in that duration and a fundamental one too. The movie is not actually about the gold, it is about one’s character and how it goes on depleting with greed which has been shown brilliantly by Bogard’s character Dobb. It is breath taking to see Bogart perform once the paranoia goes into his head about owning all the gold; it is just his just his brilliance which captures the whole screen. His portrayal of a selfish, frightened, greedy paranoid colors the screen. His revered monologue, the ‘conscious’ scene, after he commits murder is an absolute masterpiece where he says "Conscience. What a thing! If you believe you got a conscience, it'll pester you to death. But if you don't believe you got one, what could it do to ya?" Shaffer makes a justice by giving him a tragic end nearing the climax of the movie. Walter Huston on the other end has been very efficiently taking care of the acting department. His performance is uniformly brilliant and his screen presence automatically makes you more attentive towards the movie. That’s the kind of effect he creates. The movie is very much about the quote he speaks – “I know what gold can do to men’s souls”.

For the time being I am waiting for my chance to see Bogard’s ‘The Maltese Falcon’ and ‘The African Queen’ and a revision of ‘Casablanca’.
My Rating: 8.75/10.00