Humphrey Bogart Seeks Cinematic Gold Via John Huston’s Peerless Treasure

 

                Allowing a resourcefulness and intensity seldom see on the screen, writer/director John Huston’s stark 1948 drama The Treasure of the Sierra Madre details a parable of greed with stunning precision. With on-location shooting in Mexico bringing a realism to the tale rare to find in a classic Hollywood production, Huston translates his screenplay (based on the B. Traven 1927 novel) to film with a skill and depth that ensures the colorful characters and their adventurous trek to find gold in the title locale reach the audience with maximum effectiveness. Featuring Humphrey Bogart in possibly his most demanding role as Fred C. Dobbs, the down-on-his-luck anti-hero desperate to find and lay his claim on the gold at any cost, Huston unfolds the story with an admirable straightforwardness and dramatic force in scenes of overwhelming potency, aided by Ted D. McCord’s B&W cinematography, one of Max Steiner’s tensest, most rousing scores and a first-rate cast surrounding Bogart, including Huston’s esteemed father, Walter, in one of his signature roles as Howard, the sage old prospector who accompanies Dobbs on his quest, and Tim Holt as a third party in the expedition, the earnest young Bob Curtin.

Treasure represented an exceptional return to form for the adventurous John Huston who, after gaining solid ground as a screenwriter in the 1930s, announced himself as a director of skill and style with Falcon, before leaving Hollywood to make films for the Army Signal Corps during WWII. With Treasure, Huston perfectly captures the uneasy tone of the piece, as alliances shift among the main characters and jeopardy constantly looms for Dobbs and his colleagues. Unfolding the dark tale with straightforward honesty and without a trace of sentimentality or slickness normally found in films of the period, Huston crafts one of the most mature and intelligent works from Hollywood’s Golden Age. After this powerful, insightful picture, Huston would continue experimenting with the film medium with ample success as a director and writer, including one of the great noirs with 1950’s Asphalt Jungle, gaining commercial and critical success with the prime entertainment of The African Queen and an intriguing take on Toulouse-Lautrec via 1952’s Moulin Rouge, ambitiously tackling one of his biggest productions with 1956’s Moby Dick, helming 1961’s interesting The Misfits, the swansong for both Clark Gable and Marilyn Monroe, then proving his sure touch was undiminished in the new 1970’s cinema era with enjoyable, potent fare such as Fat City and the rousing The Man Who Would Be King. Huston also scored a degree of merit as a character actor, with an Oscar nomination for 1963’s The Cardinal and one of filmdom’s most notable villains as the lecherous Noah Cross in 1974’s Chinatown. Just before his passing in 1987 at 81, Huston again witnessed major directorial success, artistically triumphing with Prizzi’s Honor (bringing an Oscar to daughter Anjelica) and The Dead.

Bogart, reuniting with director Huston for a dramatic assignment that ranks among his most indelible and rewarding work after a beneficial association that included Falcon and, later in 1948, a hit with Key Largo, fully commits to the challenging role, lending a riveting conviction to Dobbs that intensifies as the prospector becomes progressively more desperate concerning the idea of gaining life-altering fortune and keeping it for himself. Having carefully built a career as an action hero with a romantic edge since his 1941 breakthrough via High Sierra and The Maltese Falcon to become one Warner Brothers and Hollywood’s most respected and profitable talents, in Treasure Bogart daringly goes against type while pushing his thespian abilities to the limit to display the nervous paranoia and avarice that propels a man to drop any semblance of scruples, as well as his grasp on sanity. After Treasure, Bogart’s filmography would continue to experience unabated highlights, including another classic endeavor with Huston for Bogart’s Oscar win as the unkempt captain of The African Queen, in a perfect pairing with Katharine Hepburn, as well as further striking, emotionally revealing dramatic work in 1950’s top noir In a Lonely Place and as the sweaty and paranoid Captain Queeg in 1954’s The Caine Mutiny,  which provided Bogart with one of his biggest hits and best reviews, as well as a final Best Actor Oscar nomination in a competitive year that saw Marlon Brando finally winning for On the Waterfront, before Bogart’s passing in early 1957.

Stage and screen veteran Walter Huston is granted one of the juiciest roles of his revered career, and he devours the choice assignment with a greedy gusto befitting the central theme of the movie. Bearing a cheerful but sage attitude and a slyness that allows the audience to judge Howard as no one’s patsy, Huston invaluably brings a liveliness and humor to the otherwise intense storyline that enriches the action and provides some needed levity from the grim outlook facing the team, while also showcasing his dramatic finesse in scenes of conflict with the increasingly edgy Dobbs. Starting his stage work as a teen in 1902, Huston would ply the boards in vaudeville and theater until a Broadway debut in 1924, followed by an enriching move into films at the start of the Sound Era in 1929, wherein for the rest of his life he remained one of the most sought-after actors in the business, with Oscar nominations for his enduring, deft work as the title character of 1936’s Dodsworth, an excellent adaptation of his Broadway triumph, All That Heaven Allows and Yankee Doodle Dandy preceding Treasure. Following Treasure, Huston would make a couple films before going out on a high note onscreen opposite Barbara Stanwyck in another imposing, meaty role as a sinister cattle baron in the florid, noir-tinged Western The Furies, released posthumously in 1950 after his passing.

As Bob, Tim Holt combines an earnest everyman quality with a believable ruggedness Holt honed from his experience during the decade as a top star of B Westerns, after starting in films as a child and alternating his low-budget endeavors with classics such as Stella Dallas, Stagecoach, My Darling Clementine and, memorably, as the spoiled George in Orson Welles’ The Magnificent Ambersons. By nature of his boyishly honest demeanor Holt allows for a strong identification figure the audience can follow as events develop and one fears more and more for Bob’s safety. Portraying James Cody, who arrives on the scene mid-film to join the trio in their gold-digging exploits, the handsome, lanky Bruce Bennett (also known as Olympic Herman Brix, and thereafter a screen Tarzan before working his way up in movies to one of the male leads in 1945’s Mildred Pierce) in one of his best performances brings  a weary decency to the role that ranks Cody, along with Bob, as the most sympathetic characters on screen.

Alfonso Bedoya aligns with Huston’s Noah Cross as one of the screen’s most sinister characters as the malevolent “Gold Hat,” a bandit without a trace of benevolence in him. Bedoya imposingly portrays the dangerous nature surrounding Gold Hat’s careless-yet-aggressive, spontaneous actions, indicating the volatile evilness at his core, specifically while uttering one of the cinema’s most famous lines concerning his thoughts on displaying badges. Supreme character player Barton MacLane relishes in conveying an oily underhandedness as the sneaky contractor Dobbs unfortunately encounters, while the adolescent Bobby Blake makes a charming impression as the boy trying to sell Dobbs a lottery ticket at the film’s outset. Finally, John Huston makes one of the best directorial cameo appearances as the wary gentleman twice accosted for a handout by Dobbs early in the film, fully suggesting the passerby’s disgust with Dobbs with a sour glance and brief chastising of the downtrodden wanderer.

                Released in January of 1948, Treasure managed to gain solid box-office returns (grossing just over $4,000,000 worldwide, according to Variety) despite the bleak nature of the story, which was so powerfully depicted that, unlike many early year releases that fade from favor come awards season, Treasure collected a trove of prizes to match a wealth of initial critical praise. Among other honors, the film placed among the ten best on The New York Times and The National Board of Review lists, with Huston also winning for Best Screenplay and father Walter winning for Best Supporting Actor, while the Golden Globes bestowed Best Picture (in a tie with Johnny Belinda), Best Director and Best Supporting Actor wins on the movie. The New York Film Critics’ Awards cited the film as the year’s best, with another Best Director prize for Huston, while the Writer’s Guild gave Huston a nod for Best Written American Drama and a win for best scripted Western. On the international film festival circuit, Max Steiner gained a Best Original Music prize from Venice. Come Oscar night, Treasure won John Best Director and Screenplay Academy Awards, with Walter taking home a richly deserved Best Supporting Actor win. Time has found Treasure’s status as one of Hollywood’s most influential and absorbing classics undiminished, witnessed by the film’s inclusion on the initial 1990 National Film Registry list of films for preservation, followed by placement at #30 and #38 on the AFI’s 1998 and 2007 lists of the 100 greatest American films. Illustrating the dangers of greed as artfully and profoundly as any other cinematic endeavor, Treasure of the Sierra Madre is sure to thrill anyone seeking out a superior viewing experience loaded with a wealth of dramatic riches.