Starring Humphrey Bogart, Walter Huston and Tim Holt, John Huston's The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948) adapts to the big screen B. Traven's novel, Der Schatz der Sierra Madre (1927) / The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1935).
Set in Mexico during the mid-1920s in the rough wake of the Mexican Revolution, three Americans seek to break out of exile and poverty by striking gold in dangerous mountain country. The film begins in Tampico, with two of the dudes catching a job at a nearby oilfield, working on a derrick. Yes, even then oil was a coveted and exploited resource. After their oil work fails, off for gold in them thar hills. In the backdrop, Mexican bandits (holdovers from the Revolution?) and federales, town folk and rural Indians, campfires, guns, trains and burros.
As for the B. Travens the German novelist, even now no one seems quite sure of his "real" identity.
This was the first movie I ever saw on TV; must have been four years old, with my Mom and friends (maybe relatives) sitting around gabbing. I remember Bogart, the grit and wildness of the story; though in my memory, his character is stuck on the end of the bridge, dying. This is not quite how it plays out. There is a tunnel cave-in, but no bridge scene such as I remembered -- maybe it's another Bogart movie blending in the memory banks?
Today's Rune: Wholeness.
1 comment:
My son and I watched "Blazing Saddles," and I had to explain to him where the "Badges? We don't need no stinkin' badges" line originally came from.
Finally saw "Treasure" in the mid eighties, while finishing my Master's work. I was shocked seeing Bogart die-- it was like seeing John Wayne die in "The Sands of Iwo Jima" or "The Cowboys."
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