The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948)

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  • THE TREASURE OF THE SIERRA MADRE


    DIRECTED BY JOHN HUSTON
    PRODUCED BY HENRY BLANKE
    EXECUTIVE PRODUCER JACK L. WARNER
    WARNER BROTHERS



    Information From IMDb


    Plot Summary
    Dobbs and Curtin meet up in Mexico, and go to work for a contractor, Pat McCormick, who takes them away to remote site and tells them they will be paid when the job is finished. When they are finished, they return to town to find McCormick to get their wages. McCormick gives them a few dollars, and says he'll just go to the bank and pick up the payroll for them. Dobbs and Curtin then meet up with an old prospector, who claims the hills are still full of gold, and if they can get the cash, he'll go with them. They eventually get the cash from McCormick after a little "persuasion", and all three set off for the hills as good friends, but will they return that way ? Written by Colin Tinto


    Full Cast
    Humphrey Bogart ... Fred C. Dobbs
    Walter Huston ... Howard
    Tim Holt ... Bob Curtin
    Bruce Bennett ... James Cody
    Barton MacLane ... Pat McCormick
    Alfonso Bedoya ... Gold Hat
    Arturo Soto Rangel ... Presidente (as A. Soto Rangel)
    Manuel Dondé ... El Jefe (as Manuel Donde)
    José Torvay ... Pablo (as Jose Torvay)
    Margarito Luna ... Pancho
    Robert Blake ... Mexican Boy Selling Lottery Tickets (uncredited)
    Guillermo Calles ... Mexican Storeowner (uncredited)
    Roberto Cañedo ... Mexican Lieutenant (uncredited)
    Spencer Chan ... Proprietor (uncredited)
    Jacqueline Dalya ... Flashy Girl (uncredited)
    Ralph Dunn ... Flophouse Bum (uncredited)
    Ernesto Escoto ... Mexican Bandit (uncredited)
    Pat Flaherty ... Customer in Bar Who Warns Curtin and Dobbs about Pat McCormick (uncredited)
    Martin Garralaga ... Railroad Conductor (uncredited)
    Jack Holt ... Flophouse Bum (uncredited)
    John Huston ... American in Tampico in White Suit (uncredited)
    Francisco Islas ... Indian (uncredited)
    Mario Mancilla ... Child (uncredited)
    Julian Rivero ... Barber (uncredited)
    Ann Sheridan ... Streetwalker (uncredited)
    Valdespino ... Indian (uncredited)
    Ildefonso Vega ... Indian (uncredited)
    Harry J. Vejar ... Bartender (uncredited)
    Ignacio Villabajo ... Mexican Bandit (uncredited)
    Clifton Young ... Flophouse Bum (uncredited)


    Original Music
    Max Steiner


    Trivia
    * The movie's line "Badges? We ain't got no badges! We don't need no badges! I don't have to show you any stinking badges!" was voted as the #36 movie quote by the American Film Institute (out of 100).


    * There were scenes in which Walter Huston had to speak fluent Spanish, a language he did not know off camera. To fill this need, John Huston hired a Mexican to record the lines, and then the elder Huston memorized them so well that many assumed he knew the language like a native.


    * Just as John Huston was starting to shoot scenes in Tampico, Mexico, the production was shut down inexplicably by the local government. It turns out that a local newspaper printed a false story that accused the filmmakers of making a production that was unflattering to Mexico. Fortunately, two of Huston's associates, Diego Rivera and Miguel Covarrubias, went to bat for the director with the President of Mexico. The libelous accusations were dropped.


    * The reclusive novelist B. Traven was asked if he would like to visit the set during location shooting. He demurred, but said he would be sending an associate instead. The associate was actually Traven himself, using a pseudonym.


    * Walter Huston, father of director John Huston, won the Academy Award for best supporting actor. John won for best direction. This was the first father/son win.


    * To lend authenticity to his role, Walter Huston was persuaded by his son John to perform without his false teeth.


    * The little boy who sells Dobbs (Humphrey Bogart) the portion of the winning lottery ticket is Robert Blake (of "Little Rascals" and "Baretta" (1975) fame).


    * John Huston stated that working with his father on this picture and his dad's subsequent Oscar win were among the favorite moments of his life.


    * Director Cameo: [John Huston] the man who Dobbs begs money from three times early in the film.


    * John Huston was fascinated by mysterious author B. Traven, who was a recluse living in Mexico. Traven approved of the director and his screenplay (by letter, obviously), and sent his intimate friend Hal Croves to the location to be a technical advisor and translator for $150 a week. The general consensus is that Croves was in fact Traven, though he always denied this. Huston was happy not to query him on the subject but his then-wife Evelyn Keyes was certain Croves was the mysterious author, believing that he was continually giving himself away, saying "I" when it should have been "he", and using phrases that were exactly the same as those to be found in Traven's letters to Huston. All very ironic, especially considering that Traven was offered $1000 a week to act as technical advisor on the film.


    * John Huston played one of his infamous practical jokes on Bruce Bennett in the campfire scene in which he eats a plate of stew. Bennett knew that his character was starving so he wolfed down the food as quickly as possible. Huston then demanded another take. And another. In both extra takes the rapidly filling-up Bennett again had to eat a large plate of stew. Unbeknownst to him, Huston had been happy with the first take. The cameras weren't even rolling for the second and the third. He just wanted to see how much food Bennett could lower before he became too stuffed. As soon as the joke was revealed, Huston added insult to injury by calling for a lunch break.


    * Filmed in Mexico, though Warners’ studio head Jack L. Warner had the unit return to Hollywood when the budget started to exceed $3 million (Warner, however, did admit that he thought the film was one of the greatest ever made).


    * Humphrey Bogart started losing his hair in 1947, round about the time he was making Dark Passage (1947), partly because of hormone shots he was taking to improve his chances of having a child with wife Lauren Bacall (although his excessive drinking and lack of vitamin B were probably also factors in his hair loss). He was completely bald by the time he arrived in Mexico. Once on location, Bogart started taking vitamin B shots, and some of his hair grew back. But he did sport a wig throughout the entire shoot, albeit one that was artfully muddied and matted to cover up the joins.


    * John Huston wrote the part of Howard specifically for his father, Walter Huston. The character that appears in the original novel is much older. Indeed, author B. Traven had envisaged Lewis Stone in the part.


    * It was novelist B. Traven who suggested that John Huston play the part of the American tourist.


    * John Huston has a cameo as an American tourist. This scene was directed by Humphrey Bogart, who took malicious pleasure on his director by making him perform the scene over and over again.


    * When John Huston first started working on the project in 1941, the studio had George Raft, Edward G. Robinson and John Garfield in mind for the three main roles. Then World War II intervened. By the time Huston came back from making several documentaries for the war effort, Humphrey Bogart had become Warner Brothers' biggest star. This was entirely appropriate, for when Bogart first got wind of the fact that Huston might be making a film of the B. Traven novel, he immediately started badgering Huston for a part.


    * As production dragged on, Humphrey Bogart, who was an avid yachtsman, was starting to get increasingly anxious about missing the Honolulu Classic, the Catalina-to-Hawaii race in which he usually took part. Despite assurances from the studio that he would be wrapped on the picture by then, he started to constantly dog John Huston about whether he would be done in time. Eventually Huston had enough and grabbed Bogart by the nose and twisted hard. Bogart never asked him how long before the shooting was over again.


    * Producer Henry Blanke had originally wanted John Garfield in the Tim Holt role, but Garfield was unavailable. Ronald Reagan was then considered.


    * On seeing the depth of Walter Huston's performance, Humphrey Bogart famously said. "One Huston is bad enough, but two are murder."


    * Initially thrilled at Walter Huston's scene-stealing performance, as the shoot wore on producer Henry Blanke started to have second thoughts about Huston upstaging the film's star, Humphrey Bogart, and so John Huston started to get notes from the studio telling him to tone down his father's performance.


    * One of the first American films to be made almost entirely on location outside the USA.


    * Vincent Sherman was all set to direct a version of the story during the WWII years until his script fell foul of the Breen office for being derogatory towards Mexicans.


    * John Huston at the time had not been married very long to Evelyn Keyes, who he constantly belittled and humiliated on the location shoot. Eventually Keyes returned to Hollywood to shoot another picture. During this time Huston decided that he wanted to adopt a little orphan boy called Pablo who had been hanging around the set. Keyes first got wind of this when she greeted Huston and Pablo at the airport upon their return from Mexico.


    * The film took 5-1/2 months to shoot and was 29 days over schedule.


    * Robert Blake snatched the water glass and coffee cup - instrumental props from his big scene - as mementos of his time on the film.


    * The fight scene in the cantina took five days to shoot.


    * Robert Rossen submitted at least nine drafts of rewrites on the screenplay when John Huston was away during the war.


    * A doctor was assigned to the unit in Mexico and one night he had to attend to John Huston, who had an adverse reaction to marijuana, having smoked it for the first time with his father. He never touched the stuff again.


    * John Huston originally wanted to cast Ronald Reagan as James Cody. Warner Bros. studio boss Jack L. Warner instead insisted on casting Reagan in The Voice of the Turtle (1947). Bruce Bennett was eventually cast as Cody.


    * 2007: The American Film Institute ranked this as the #38 Greatest Movie of All Time.


    * The bum seated near Walter Huston in the first scene in the Oso Negro flophouse is Jack Holt, father of Tim Holt. Holt is not the man in the barroom scene who speaks to Humphrey Bogart and Tim Holt in the saloon, as stated by Eric Lax in his DVD commentary. That actor is Pat Flaherty.


    * Director John Huston had read the book "The Treasure of the Sierra Madre" by B. Traven in 1936 and had always thought the material would make a great movie. Based on a 19th-century ballad by a German poet, Traven's book reminded Huston of his own adventures in the Mexican cavalry. When Huston became a director at Warner Bros., the smashing success of his initial effort, The Maltese Falcon (1941), gave him the clout to ask to write and direct the project, for which Warner Bros. had previously secured the movie rights.


    * Humphrey Bogart's and Tim Holt's very first scene together was also the very first scene shot.


    * Walter Huston learned his famous jig from playwright 'Eugene O'Neill (I)' when he was performing in O'Neill's play "Desire Under the Elms" in 1925. This most famous of dances was unscripted and was Walter's idea.


    Goofs
    * Crew or equipment visible: When Dobbs goes back to bury the body, he runs around looking for it, then trips over. As he does so he practically falls off the set, as visible to the left are a large water tank and a hose.


    * Anachronisms: In an early scene when Dobbs is getting a haircut, an automobile flashes past the window of the barbershop. It appears to be a late 1940s sedan.


    * Anachronisms: Although set in Mexico in the 1920s, many of the cars on the street in the Tampico scenes are of 1930s and 1940s vintage.


    * Revealing mistakes: When Howard and Curtin pursuit Dobbs, they pass a "dead" donkey, left by Dobbs. The donkey is breathing and the ropes used to tie the its legs are visible.


    * Crew or equipment visible: During the fight with the bandits, a shadow of a crew member is visible against Tim Holt's shirt for a few seconds before he goes to check on the condition of Cody.


    * Continuity: When they are looking for gold, Curtin and Dobbs stop to rest, and Curtin puts the stick on his right leg. Immediately after, without his having moved, the stick is leaning on his shoulder.


    * Continuity: When Howard is trying to revive the Indian boy, there is nothing around the boy. Later a calabash gourd appears on his left side and changes position between shots.


    * Continuity: When Howard is laid on a hammock, being served by Indian women, he has a little bunch of flowers on his left ear which disappear in subsequent shots.


    * Continuity: When Dobbs finds the well, he is ahead of the donkeys. Next shot he is behind them.


    * Errors in geography: There are background noises from wildlife in parts of the movie. One of which is the unmistakable call of the Australian Kookaburra.


    * Continuity: In subsequent scenes Gold Hat's sombrero is missing the bullet hole that Bogart shot into it at the mountain confrontation.


    * Revealing mistakes: In the last scene, after Curtin has been shot and his arm is put in a sling, he hops onto his horse by pulling himself up entirely with his hurt arm. He takes the time to slip his arm back into the sling in the same shot.


    * Continuity: After Curtain is shot by Dobbs, the wound to the shoulder is not the same when Dobbs goes back to Curtain with the torch.


    * Revealing mistakes: Glaringly obvious use of doubles in the barfight scene to replace Humphrey Bogart, Tim Holt and Barton MacLane.


    * Errors made by characters (possibly deliberate errors by the filmmakers): In trying to pass themselves off as hunters, Dobbs, Howard, and Curtain mention some of the animals they are hunting. Among the game they mention are tigers and lions, which are not found in Mexico. Tigers are found in Southeast Asia and the Indian Subcontinent and although there are mountain lions in Mexico, they are not referred to as such; they are called Puma.


    * Factual errors: At the end, the gold dust would have never blown away. It is far too heavy. It could have been recovered by panning the topsoil where it was dumped. That brings another problem. No Mexican bandit would have mistaken gold dust for anything but gold.


    Filming locations
    Acapulco, Guerrero, Mexico
    Iverson Ranch, Chatsworth, Los Angeles, California, USA
    Jungapeo, Michoacán, Mexico
    Kernville, California, USA (Kelly's Rainbow Mine)
    Mexico
    Mojave Desert, California, USA
    San Jose Purua, Michoacán, Mexico
    Tampico, Tamaulipas, Mexico

    Best Wishes
    Keith
    London- England

    Edited 8 times, last by ethanedwards ().

  • The Treasure of the Sierra Madre is a 1948 American dramatic adventurous neo-western
    written and directed by John Huston.
    It is a feature film adaptation of B. Traven's 1927 novel of the same name,
    about two financially desperate Americans, Fred C. Dobbs (Humphrey Bogart)
    and Bob Curtin (Tim Holt), who in the 1920s join initially reluctant old-timer
    Howard (Walter Huston, the director's father) in Mexico to prospect for gold.


    The Treasure of the Sierra Madre was one of the first Hollywood films to be filmed
    on location outside the United States (in the state of Durango and street scenes in Tampico, Mexico), although many scenes were filmed back in the studio and elsewhere in the US.
    The film is quite faithful to the source novel.
    In 1990, the film was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry
    by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant"



    This was a classic western.
    Humph didn't make many,all two of them!!
    but this was the great one!
    Not only is it listed as one of the top ever westerns,
    it is also credited as being one of the best movies, ever made.
    A dark, moody film, with wonderful performances,
    from Bogart and Huston.
    Bogarts, performance is even listed
    in the Top 30, Best Performances ever.


    Interesting Quote from Bogart:-

    Quote

    I don't approve of the John Waynes and the Gary Coopers saying 'Shucks, I ain't no actor -- I'm just a bridge builder or a gas station attendant.' If they aren't actors, what the hell are they getting paid for? I have respect for my profession. I worked hard at it.

    Best Wishes
    Keith
    London- England

    Edited 2 times, last by ethanedwards ().

  • I may be wrong but I just never regarded TOTSM as a Western. It was a wonderful movie, featuring some great acting, but to me, no Western per se.

    De gustibus non est disputandum

  • I take your point about not being a western in the classic form but when you think about it
    does have a number of indicators pointing it in the direction of falling into western style adventure movie.

    It is actually the only Bogart film I have on DVD so maybe I felt the western undercurrents. I currently have it shelved in adventure type movies but I will reclassify it as a western.:thumbs_up:



    Mike

  • Initially, I tended to agree with Stumpy, as I'd never thought of it as a Western. Lo and behold, IMDb lists it as such - Adventure/Drama/Western/Action. It's been among my favorite movies. As a sub-note, when I was a teenager, there was a local radio personality who also had an early morning TV show in San Francisco - Al "Jazzbo" Collins - who used, as his theme, the badges line, "I don't got to show you no stinkin' badges!" He had a loyal local following, and went on to bigger, better things.


    Since then, I've always had a soft spot for that line - it takes me down memory lane.


    Chester :newyear:

  • Treasure of the Sierra Madre is one of my all-time most favorites. I loved the lines Alfonso Bedoya delivered when he and his Bandits confront Bogie, Hilt, Houston and Bennett, at their camp. "Badges, I don't got no badges, we don't need no steeenkin' badges."

    Es Ist Verboten Mit Gefangenen In Einzelhaft Zu Sprechen..

  • That sounds like good prices for a format I cant afford to collect ;-))


    Oh and, just remembered the title to that $3 buck DvD: Treasure of the Sierra Madre and i got it because its a 2-disc set. I have the movie but will be giving it away to a friend. That one is one of my top favorite Bogie movies topped only by: Sahara and They Drive By Night.



    Treasure of the Sierra Madre is a terrific film! They are releasing it here in the UK this month as a limited edition Blu Ray steelbook, already reserved mine!


    "Pour yourself some backbone and shut up!"

  • Treasure of the Sierra Madre is a terrific film! They are releasing it here in the UK this month as a limited edition Blu Ray steelbook, already reserved mine!




    I love the movie. If you want it? I have the one disc copy only played once.

    Es Ist Verboten Mit Gefangenen In Einzelhaft Zu Sprechen..