THE TREASURE OF THE SIERRA MADRE-1948-2 1/2 STARS

14. April 2008 by Ria.

In this movie, Bogart stars as Fred Dobbs, a bum hangin’ around the streets of Tampico, Mexico, beggin’ people for money on a regular basis. The storyline leads us to believe that Dobbs is just down on his luck, and struggling to survive, until he can find a steady job. However, as the movie progresses and his true personality comes to light, we find out this isn’t the case. In other words, by the time you finish watching this movie, you’ll realize that the reason he’s broke and homeless, is because he’s a stupid jerk with some serious mental issues, and nobody would legitimately hire him to do anything, anyway.

Okay, so he’s walking around homeless, and he asks this prosperous looking guy for some dough, and the guy gives him 1 peso. That’s it, one peso? However, I find out that this one peso can keep you from starvin’ for a least a few days, if you spend it right. Well, first of all the movie is set back to the 1920’s, so I’m sure a peso back then could go far. Also, It seemed that the places Dobbs patronized, were charging him centavos which are far less than pesos.

Let me just give you a quick Mexican Currency lesson here. It takes 100 centavos to equal 1 peso. Now why is this important? Because Dobbs was able to buy a lot of stuff with his peso. First he bought himself a meal (or maybe it was booze), then, a lotto ticket. Oh, Robert Blake of Barretta and Little Rascals fame shows up as the boy selling him the lotto ticket, so make sure to catch a good glimpse of him getting water thrown in his face by Dobbs for being a pest.

Now for all of you who believed Blake killed his last wife, you’ll be able to watch that water-thrown-in-face-scene and smile, because it’ll probably be the only punishment he’ll ever get. Okay, now Dobbs has his peso, and he’s good to go, at least for the morning, so he wanders into the park, and there he meets Curtin (Tim Holt). They start talking about how broke they are, and how it would be nice is someone offered them a job, or if they could start a business. Then Dobbs is off again, and he asks the same prosperous guy he met earlier for money, and the guy gives him another peso.

Now with this peso Dobbs is able to get a nice shave and haircut. Good, now he’s a clean shaven bum. He runs into the same prosperous guy again, and asks for money, but by this time, the man is pissed off, gives him two pesos, and a lecture on how he needs to leave him alone and start asking someone else for money, and Dobbs complies. Now I don’t know what he did what those two pesos. Maybe he put in a bid for a new XBOX, or the latest Blu-Ray television, I’m not sure, but what I do know is that in the next scene, Dobbs is out there beggin’ for money again, and he runs into some shyster by the name of McCormick (Barton MacLane).

This guy offers Dobbs, Curtin, and a whole bunch of guys a job, and after everyone works their ass off for two weeks straight, McCormick runs off without paying anybody a dime. But, before he does that, he gives Dobbs a ten spot, and tells him to meet him at some bar, and of course he never showed. Dobbs and Curtin, wasting the 10 dollars away, probably on booze, take the last $2.50, and rent a room at a flop house for the night for 50 centavos.

Here they meet this old dude named Howard (Walter Huston), an expert in gold digging. So he’s in there talking about his expeditions, how greedy men get when the find gold, and all the while, Dobbs is absorbing all this new information. Then Dobbs steps in and says that if he found gold, he would only take what he set out to get, and leave the rest. “Yeah right Dobbs, YOU ARE SUCH A FRIGGIN’ LIAR! You acted like a total moron all throughout this movie from the time you found gold, and that’s why you lost your life in the end!”

Yes folks, I’m skipping over tons of scenes to tell you that, but so what. Well, I should at least cover some scenes where Dobbs turned into a paranoid schizophrenic, but who knows, maybe he was one from the get-go. Whatever, so Dobbs, Curtin, and Howard find gold in the mountains of south Mexico and the fun starts. First, Dobbs wants to divide up the gold as they go along, instead of letting one person hold on to it until they get back into town, and divide it there (the normal thing to do).

Then there is the scene where Curtin and Howard talk about what they plan to do with their share, and they’ll stop diggin’ when they get to $25,000 a piece. Then, greedy ass Dobbs steps in and says he’s gonna stay and get as much as he can, $75,000 or more. Curtin in so many words calls him a pig, and Dobbs wigs out, and demand a portion of his gold, ’cause he invested the most money in this expedition (oh, by the way, Dobbs won that lotto contest, 200 pesos).

I could go on and on, but you get the drift by now. In the end, Dobbs turns into a full blown schizoid by planning to run off with Howard’s goods while he’s enjoying some Indian hospitality for a few days. Curtin threatens to blow Dobbs’s head off, if he even tries to steal from the old man, but one night when Curtin fell asleep, Dobbs was able to get his gun, and shot him, taking his gold too. Now Curtin didn’t die, some Indians found him, and brought him to Howard, but Dobbs trailed on alone, ran into bandits, and got what was coming to him. Unfortunately, the bandits ripped open the sacks filled with gold, and the wind blew it away.

So now, Curtin is back to being broke, but hey, he’s still alive, and the old man? He’s gonna live the rest of his life as some kind of effigy to the Indians since he saved a boy’s life in their village. Good movie, but too many unnecessary scenes, like the bandit shootouts (there were 2), and an execution Mexican style (even though none of these scenes evolve the storyline at all). Oh, and I’m sorry, you’re not gonna make me believe that Indians don’t know how to save the life of one of their own, and that they have to ask unemployed bums looking for gold for help.

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