☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆
Treasure of the Sierre Madre
(1948) – J. Huston
Badges! We don’t need to show you
no stinking badges! These are the
immortal words spoken by a Mexican bandit upon discovering Humphrey Bogart, Tim
Holt, and Walter Huston squatting on a solid vein of gold and hoping to remake
their destitute lives with a tidy profit.
But bandits are only one of their problems; greed and mistrust are the
major obstacles to their success. Bogie
is ugly as Fred C. Dobbs who is most crippled by the paranoia that descends as
their fortunes increase. But Walter
Huston (father of the director and a star in his own right) really steals the
show as the wise old prospector who knows all the tricks of the trade and has
his head screwed on straight. The fact
that he can relish the absurdity of the movie’s ending with a hearty laugh
endears him to us even more. Huston (the
son) shot the film on location in Mexico and you can tell; he also makes a
cameo early in the picture when Bogie hits him up for some loose change in
Tampico. The new blu-ray version I
watched felt weirdly clean and detailed for a film this old – like you are
there – in sun-baked black and white. A
classic that never gets old (and reminds you that the pursuit of wealth at the
expense of your relationships is bound to be folly).
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