#30. Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948)

I have to believe that some of the films on this list were only selected for one primary reason: “Forrest Gump” because of how much a part of popular culture it has become, “Close Encounters of the Third Kind” for its special effects and “The Jazz Singer” because it was the first “talkie.” However, I think it is WAY generous to let a movie on the list simply because of one line; in this case “Badges? We don’t got to show you no stinkin’ badges!” Not that “Treasure of the Sierra Madre” is a bad movie, it’s fine; it’s what really annoying people refer to as “meh.” But other than this famous line and some exceptional on-location cinematography, it isn’t anything special.

In fact, the concept of a pack of societal dregs-turned-prospectors smacks of a sort of hybrid of “The Gold Rush” and “Stagecoach.” However, what “Treasure of the Sierra Madre” lacks in substance it makes up for in sheer suspense and depth of characters. The scary transition that all the protagonists undergo serves as a very realistic and unsanitized plunge into the psyche.

Humphrey Bogart portrays the lead character Fred Dobbs in such a way that he cannot be mistaken for a good man who falls on hard times. He is an American who basically just bums around in post-revolution Mexico. On three separate occasions he is seen asking the same well-to-do-looking fellow American for money with which to buy a meal. Though the benefactor seems incredulous every time Dobbs hits him up and never actually speaks to him, the far greater insult to basic decency is the fact that Dobbs never bothers to remember the man’s face well enough to realize it is the same person over and over. Though he passes this off by implying that it is because he is ashamed and can’t look the man in the eye, it is pretty evident when he is seen spending his handout money on drinks, shaves and lottery tickets that he may not be so much unfortunate as he is unprincipled.

To Dobb’s credit though, when he is offered the chance to work on an oil rig for a handsome (at the time) sum, he readily accepts. Unfortunately, the unscrupulous owner cheats Dobbs and the other workers out of their pay. While hanging out at a sort of flophouse/hostel with Curtin (Tim Holt) another worker from the screwed crew, they meet Howard, a haggard, half-nuts old prospector rambling on about a mountain of gold a short train ride away. Despite the fact that Howard stresses the madness and greed that he has seen miners succumb to in the past, Dobbs and Curtin are only focused on the prospect of fast and easy riches.

One of the key elements at play in this sequence is the mixture of foreshadowing and irony. The trio are able to buy the mining equipment they need thanks largely to the money Dobbs wins with the lottery ticket he bought earlier in the film- though the numbers eerily add up to 13. Also, when Howard warns that successful gold hunters are never happy with the haul they get Dobbs adamantly insists he only wants a modest take. Lastly, and as it turns out, most grimly, Dobbs pledges his loyalty to his newfound brethren, in what is a suspect and uncharacteristic move on his part.

The action then leaves the dingy cantinas of Tampico and takes a turn for the John Ford-esque with vast expanses of desert opening up the scenery as if it blasted the walls off the cramped studio sets. Of course, the extreme conditions of the Mexican desert also serve to amplify everyone’s personalities to an almost ludicrous extent. Oddly, though probably thankfully, there isn’t a tedious “looking fruitlessly for gold” period in the film; instead they discover their mine almost instantly, which frees the narrative up for more substance than just a lot of mysterious pursuit. The first seeds of dissention are sown when Dobbs insists the men all keep separate claims rather than keeping all their gold together and dividing up their earnings once they return to civilization and cash out. Howard and Curtin don’t understand why their efforts can’t be more cooperative and trusting, Dobbs seems to adopt an “every man for himself” attitude.

“As long as there's no find, the noble brotherhood will last- but when the piles of gold begin to grow... that's when the trouble starts.” (Howard, “Treasure of the Sierra Madre”)

The differences between the men become more stark when they discuss what they plan to do with their fortunes. Howard and Curtin have practical and responsible plans; opening a general store and starting a fruit ranch respectively. Dobbs however, talks about how he is going to blow his claim on drinking and whores. This scene, when combined with the panhandling montage in the beginning of the film, goes above and beyond in terms of giving the viewer an accurate picture of what Dobbs is like.

Things kind of start to go downhill for our heroes from there. Cleverly filmed close-ups show the men trying to sleep but the distrust is evident on their faces and in their body language. The additional effect of filming these scenes near a campfire so their faces (particularly Dobbs’) are shadowed and poorly lit helps create horror movie-like imagery- the irony of course being that Dobbs is the least trustworthy of the group and subsequently the most suspicious of his partners. The very intense feelings of distrust and internal plans of betrayal are conveyed extremely well here, but the technique is nothing I haven’t seen before in the films of James Whale or F.W. Murnau.

Other moral conflicts arise (Curtin has a chance to let Dobbs die in a cave-in but rescues him instead, and a fourth team member named Cody joins the fray and the original three plan to kill him) as well as obstacles including run-ins with a roving gang of Mexican bandits who pretend to be Federal Agents which yield the famous “stinkin’ badges” quote. However, all of the physical and natural conflicts that arise are all downplayed in order to focus on Howard’s self-fulfilling prophecy of madness and greed taking hold, so much so that Howard’s repeated and characteristic insane laugh is actually adopted by Dobbs in several scenes. The belabored motif of distrust finally culminates in Dobbs shooting Curtin (behind a wagon, and off camera so that the viewer is never 100% sure what happened) and leaving him for dead.

The preachy moral of the story falls solely in the fate of Dobbs, who encounters the bandits yet again, but now that he has betrayed his friends and let greed get in the way, there is nobody to help him when the bandits brutally murder him. They loot his supplies and dump all his bags of “sand” which is actually all the unrefined gold he, Curtin and Howard extracted from the mountain. The wind symbolically carries all the gold away and it, like Dobb’s soul, is lost in the desert. The final reminder that Dobbs is a bad guy and that Curtin and Howard are good guys comes at their reactions to the loss of the treasure. Howard’s annoying cackle-laugh is finally genuine rather than insane ranting as he and Curtin almost seem to revel in the fact that their adventure ends so ironically. In a way, they are almost liberated by the loss of the gold as it represents a sort of lifting of the greed-imposed curse.

As I said before, there is nothing really “wrong” with “Treasure of the Sierra Madre” there is just nothing I found to be particularly special about it. The suspense is very noir-ish without any of the actual benefits of noir, I can easily compare the daytime cinematography to that of Fred Zimmerman, the nighttime cinematography to Tod Browning and morality play to any number of films before and since. There were actually several times I wanted to fast forward through Howard’s maddening laugh, which, while unique in its own right in terms of establishing a clear roadmap of his mental state, is still not necessarily unique in a good way. Basically, if I wanted to be preached to in a sleight of hand way I would watch “Joan of Arcadia.”