Despite its being over 70 years-old, I’m struggling to name a film that contains within it such a considered, meticulous deconstruction of the human impulse to greed. The Treasure of the Sierra Madre is a film not frightened to expose the dark, lustful urges that lie deep within our souls. The film’s title may mislead one into thinking this will be a simple adventure story where our heroes traverse mountain ranges, fighting both the terrain and perhaps scattered groups of bandits in the hope of finding their fortune. However, there is more to this story than that. Yes there are entertaining fights with bandits and our heroes do strike it rich, but none of these events are present in the film simply to titillate or amuse. These events help to aid our psychological evaluations of these characters and grant us access to a bleak form of morality that may be more prevalent in modern day society, indeed within each one of us, than we care to admit.
When we first meet Fred C. Dobbs (Humphrey Bogart) he’s a down-on-his-luck drifter floating through the streets of Tampico, Mexico, trying to make a buck any way he possibly can. Cheated out of the money owed to him for his work, he teams up with fellow vagrant Curtin (Tim Holt) and together they beat the money out of their crooked boss. Looking both to get out of town and find a new line of work, they meet Howard (John Huston’s father – Walter Huston) an effusive but seemingly knowledgeable old man who claims there is gold to be prospected up in the mountains should the three of them combine their assets. Following in Howard’s experienced footsteps, Dobbs and Curtin make it up the mountain with some difficulty and soon enough they strike it lucky and find the perfect spot to erect their gold mine. It is agreed in advance that any findings should be split fairly three-ways, but Dobbs the most paranoid of the group grows suspicious of the intentions of his fellow prospectors.
What follows is the credible and at times disturbing psychological deterioration of a man driven by greed. Despite warnings from Howard who presciently claims to know “what gold does to men's souls” and signs that Curtin and Howard are good and honest men, Dobbs remains unable to shake the paranoid notion that they are seeking to cheat him out of his share of the money. The events that occur in the first third of the film set us up perfectly for Dobb’s impending breakdown. His impoverished lifestyle prior to the excursion explains his lustful almost obsessive attitude towards the gold. After all, nobody knows the value of money more than somebody who has gone without for such a long time. It is also important to show Dobbs being beguiled out of his money on a previous occasion. This grants the paranoia prevalent in his mind throughout the course of the film a base and serves to show he is willing to use violence to ensure he gets what he desires.
Within this frenzied atmosphere of distrust and fear we see the way moral boundaries are tried and tested by the presence of something as vital and desirable as gold. At one stage our three prospectors are approached by a fourth man who seeks to become a partner and make a share of their profits. They are now faced with three choices: to release the man and allow him to head back into town where he can inform the community of the large quantity of gold to be prospected in the mountain, allow him to become a partner or murder him and discreetly remove the evidence. In any civil and decent society of people option one or two would be the only possible solution. But in this case there are large portions of gold at stake and it is clear that this factor weighs heavily on the minds of the three lead characters.
The conclusion they arrive at is inevitable - even jolly old Howard eventually concedes that they ought to kill this newcomer in order to protect their bounty. If I have one minor quibble with this film it’s that the characters are given an easy way out of this moral conundrum when outside forces bring about the death of this problematic newcomer. I’d have liked to see whether Curtin and Howard could find it within themselves to pull the trigger on this innocent man and sink to the level of moral depravity which Dobb’s finds himself later in the film. Yet, given that this decision results in a fantastically entertaining encounter with an intimidating gang of bandits and one of the most famous film lines of all time – “We don't need no badges. I don't have to show you any stinking badges” - I think we can let director John Huston off the hook.
The performances are unanimously great. Bogey, playing against type is masterful as the loathsome Dobbs. He perfectly encapsulates the paranoia that so often goes hand in hand with obsession. It’s a measured and precise performance that does not feel over the top, at least until his final scenes where his madness becomes uncontrollable. By this stage, however, I think we as an audience are both expecting this to happen and indeed accepting that this is the logical progression for his character. Whether or not this is Bogey’s best performance is still a matter of debate, but it’s certainly the most psychologically complex. The show, however, is well and truly stole by Walter Huston who commands every scene he is in. At first he appears only to express a kind of joviality and in a lesser film he would probably be relegated to the role of comic relief. Yet behind those friendly smiling eyes Huston’s Howard expresses a kind of world-weariness – a knowledge of the world that he bears not as a crux, but something he has accepted and refuses to allow to get him down. Both John and Walter Huston won academy awards for their work on their film and rightfully so. This is a thrilling morality play that encourages introspection and debate. No doubt its power and force will remain equally strong for the next 70 years.
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