Rating: 
Summary: A BONA-FIDE CLASSIC STORY OF GREED AND BETRAYAL !
Review: Here you have a trully great package: a top director (John Huston) and a top star (Bogart) with an great screenplay, music (by Max Steiner), great photography (by Ted McCord) and a top cast. The story revolves around a group of stray losers (stranded in a mexican town) who decide to join forces and go after the (gold) riches of the wild, lawless mexican lands. They are greedy Dobbs (Bogart), honest Curtin (Tim Holt) and wise old Howard (Walter Huston). But the gold fortune they gain from the mountain soon transforms their views and relationships as Dobbs quickly falls into paranoia.This is a trully classic film which deserved a trully great DVD edition... and this is it!! A two-disc edition with everything you can dream of... A great documentary (The Story of TTOTSM) with Martin Scorsese (lots of and others), another documentary about John Huston, two great Bugs Bunny films (one is a funny spoof of this film), A Lux Radio Theater broadcast, a vast gallery of photos and publicity material, a dozen Bogart trailers, one short film, a newsreel... everything you need to reproduce a classic night at the movies back in 1948!!!!!! Obviously, the film in this edition has flawless sound and image... and along with this incredible tray of extras, this is surely the DVD edition to buy. It seems that Warner Home Video is commited to release deffinitive editions of some of its classics (Thanks, WHV!!). I bought this DVD in a box that contains also Yankee Doodle Dandy and The Adventures of Robin Hood (two other two-disc editions who got this first rate treatment). A great buy for an affordable price! Check for the 3 film box containing The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, Yankee Dodle Dandy and The Adventures of Robin Hood. John Huston appears briefly (and repeatedly) as the american in a white suit who gives Bogart a coin - surely, the greatest director-cameo I've ever seen in an american classic film.
Rating:
Summary: Bogart gives outstanding performance in this classic film
Review: "The Treasure of the Sierra Madre" won Oscars for best director (John Huston), best supporting actor (Walter Huston) and best screenplay (John Huston). The film was also nominated for best picture but unfortunately lost out to Laurence Olivier's "Hamlet". This was yet another marvellous performance by Humphrey Bogart in a difficult role and proves once again what an outstanding actor he can be when given the right material. Fred C. Dobbs (Humphrey Bogart) and Bob Curtin (Tim Holt) are two Americans down on their luck in Tampico, Mexico, who manage to acquire a temporary job working for Pat McCormick (Barton MacLaine) but don't get paid for their efforts as McCormick does a disappearing act with the money. Dobbs and Curtin catch up with him later in a bar and after coming to blows manage to get the money that was owed to them. A young Mexican boy (Robert Blake) approaches Dobbs who reluctantly buys a lottery ticket from him. Dobbs and Curtin spend the night in a flop house where they meet Howard (Walter Huston), a grizzled old timer who tells them stories of the times he went prospecting for gold in the mountains. They are both quite interested in this but don't have the necessary funds to purchase the equipment they would need. Next day the young Mexican boy comes to find Dobbs to tell him that his ticket has won some money in the lottery. It is not a fortune but enough to invest in some tools and equipment so that Curtin and himself can team up with Howard to search for gold in the Sierra Madre mountains. Greed and distrust inevitably take hold of Dobbs and he gets increasingly suspicious of his two companions and becomes more and more paranoid as the days go by. He is sure that they want to steal his share of the gold which is just not so. A group of bandits led by Gold Hat (Alfonso Bedoya) come across their camp and try to rob them of the gold but with the help of James Cody (Bruce Bennett) they manage to fight them off. Some favourite lines from the film: Humphrey Bogart (to John Huston): "Hey, mister, will you stake a fellow American to a meal?". Bogart (to Bruce Bennett): "Tonight you're our guest. Tomorrow morning look out - no trespassing around here, you know, beware of the dog - get it?". Alfonso Bedoya (to Bogart): "Badges? We ain't got no badges. We don't need no badges. I don't have to show you any stinking badges". Bogart (to Tim Holt): "Fred C. Dobbs don't say nothing he don't mean". Writer/director John Huston played a cameo role at the start of the film as an American tourist ("White Suit") who Bogart approaches for money (three times!). Robert Blake was the small boy who sold Bogart the winning lottery ticket. Blake later went on to appear in many feature films such as "In Cold Blood", "Electra Glide in Blue", "Tell Them Willie Boy is Here", and also starred in the TV seies "Baretta". This was a superlative performance by Humphrey Bogart - one of his best - and completely different to his smooth portrayal of Rick in "Casablanca". His character of Fred C. Dobbs was shifty and devious verging on paranoia and madness. The film has now rightly become a classic and is much admired by "movie buffs". Clive Roberts.
Rating:
Summary: Awesome script, scenery & acting
Review: This is a movie where bogart's conscience (for our benefit joyfully) drives him to be as bad as possible. The opposite of what made him cool in other movies, again makes him cool here. The old-timer was also great - he knew how to be really happy.
Rating:
Summary: One of the two greatest films ever made about pure greed
Review: Along with the great Erich von Stroheim classic GREED (which tragically exists only in a greatly abridged version, and which was based on the haunting Frank Norris novel MCTEAGUE), this is the most powerful movie ever made on the destructive power of greed. THE TREASURE OF SIERRA MADRE is rightfully considered one of the greatest American films, and is also yet another in a string of first-rate collaborations between John Huston and Humphrey Bogart. Although Bogart made many superb films in the forties and fifties, a disproportionate number were with Huston, including the film that made him a star, THE MALTESE FALCON, and the film that garnered Bogie his only Oscar, THE AFRICAN QUEEN. The cast consists primarily of three drifters who want to hit it rich in Mexico. Bogart plays Fred C. Dobbs, in one of the greatest roles of his career. The character of Bob Curtin is played by Tim Holt, a "B" actor (in the quite literal sense of having acted in scores of "B" pictures) who nonetheless managed to get parts in some exceptionally great films, notably this one, THE MAGNIFICENT AMBERSONS, and MY DARLING CLEMENTINE, as well as a small role in STAGECOACH (he plays the cavalry commander who rides a short distance with the stagecoach before departing). Both Bogart and Holt are excellent, but the film is more or less stolen by the great Walter Huston, John's father, in the last great role in a long and distinguished career as the veteran prospector Howard. The film was based on a very great novel by the same title by one of the most reclusive authors in the history of literature. During his lifetime, the identify of B. Traven was unknown. If you find dust jackets for printings of his novels from the forties and fifties and sixties, the biographical details are something out of science fiction. Some even claimed that he was Jack London, living in Mexico after having faked his own death! Eventually, investigators went to Mexico after his death and searched exhaustively for the secrets to his identity. He turned out to be an ex-patriot German (not a surprise, since his books were always published in Germany before the United States) named Rex Marut. When John Huston went down to Mexico to film THE TREASURE OF SIERRA MADRE, he attempted to arrange a meeting with B. Traven, but was informed that he was to meet with Traven's representative Hal Croves instead. There is a wonderful photograph that exists of John Huston and "Hal Groves" talking. As he talked with Croves, Huston began to suspect that he was in fact B. Traven himself, though he was unable to voice his suspicion. Years later, it was confirmed to Huston that Hal Groves was yet another alias for Ret Marut a.k.a. B. Traven. Given this fascinating story, it would have been wonder if they could have included as one of the extras for the DVD set the 60-minute documentary THE MAN WHO WAS B. TRAVEN. The extras are good, but this would have been a wonderful addition. Filming THE TREASURE OF SIERRA MADRE in 1948 was a fascinating choice by John Huston. In 1947, when they were filming, a sharp shift to the political right was clearly discernable. Whereas Hollywood in the 1930s had been largely leftist, in the late forties it was unquestionably right wing. Among directors especially, there were virtually no exceptions, though two prominent directors persisted in their leftist beliefs: one was the great Billy Wilder and the other was John Huston. B. Traven himself was a liberal anarchist populist (it is widely thought he was self-exiled in Mexico because of previous political activity), and the book, as does the movie, is an attack on the materialist values driving Western civilization. Not many directors would have had the courage in 1947 (it was released in January 1948) to make a movie about the evils of greed, but Huston was one who did. Likewise, Bogart was one of the more politically liberal actors in Hollywood, and was unafraid of being in a movie with the message that this one contained. The film is highly unusual in having been filmed primarily on location in Mexico, unlike most Hollywood films, which would merely film in some southern California location. This imparts a look to the film that sets it apart fromAlso unlike most Hollywood films, Huston actually employed Hispanic actors in Hispanic roles. This allowed one veteran Mexican character actor, Alfonso Bedoya, to deliver one of the most famous lines in the history of the movies, when he tells Fred C. Dobbs, "Badges? We don't need no stinking badges!"
Rating:
Summary: A Pot of Gold at the end of this Adventure
Review: This is a great example of what makes the DVD format so wonderful. A great, classic movie with wonderful commentaries, intersting short subjects, a cartoon, and many other extras. The documentary on John Huston is well done and interesting as is the feature on the film itself. And what a film! Great acting, writing and terrific direction make this a classic. The story still holds up today as do the performances of Humphrey Bogart and Walton Huston. Huston desrved his Oscar that year, and the fact that Bogie was not even nominated has to be one of the all time worst decisions of the Academy. He is brilliant in his role as the surly, menacing Fred Dobbs. Everything about this movie works- it deserves its place on AFI's 100 Greatest Movies list. This is a perfect gift for anyone who loves really good movies.
Rating:
Summary: Greeeeeed!!!
Review: Greed wrecks Bogarts life.In the end I'm happy. Why? At least his two pals didn't die.The only one who suffered was himself. A ironic line of Bogart"My friends are coming behind me on horses" when he's faced by bandits after ditching his friends.In truth,his friends are riding on horses to get their gold back from him.They arrived too late.Chilling.....
Rating:
Summary: They don't make 'em like this one anymore...
Review: ...and that's a crying shame, because "The Treasure of the Sierra Madre" is everything a movie should be and one of the greatest films ever to come out of Hollywood. This morality tale about three down-and-out Americans prospecting for gold in the Mexican mountains is a timeless story of friendship, greed and betrayal, wonderfully directed by John Huston and acted by Humphrey Bogart (in his best role ever), Tim Holt, and Huston's father, Walter Huston, who won a well-deserved Oscar for his portrayal as the old prospector (as did Huston Jr. for best director). Bogart's descent into madness is an acting tour de force; it's too bad he and Huston didn't win a joint Oscar. But there are so many Oscar-worthy performances in this film (I especially liked Alfonso Bedoya in the role of the bad guy Gold Hat) that they couldn't begin to hand out awards to everyone who deserved one. There is not one thing I would change in this movie. The ending is priceless. Seeing all the gold blown back into the hills where it came from has the viewer collapsing with laughter along with Holt and Huston, even while we appreciate, along with them, their hard-won lesson. This movie surely deserves a prominent place in any list of the ten best films of all time.
Rating:
Summary: Classic depiction of greed wrapped in grand adventure tale
Review: The beauty of this classic film is that, while it certainly is a shattering depiction of how greed destroys a man and depletes one's innocence, THE TREASURE OF THE SIERRA MADRE also works as an exciting adventure, with great-looking black-and-white scenery serving as perhaps a counterpoint to the darker things going on in the soul of Humphrey Bogart's Fred C. Dobbs. That a movie can be so entertaining yet so powerfully reflective of human nature is most likely what has allowed this film to live on ever since its release in 1948. Great entertainment that is also food for thought seems in such short supply in movies today that we really should treasure movies like this, especially when it's made this well.
Rating:
Summary: Greeeeeed!!!
Review: Greed wrecks Bogarts life.In the end I'm happy. Why? At least his two pals didn't die.The only one who suffered was himself. A ironic line of Bogart"My friends are coming behind me on horses" when he's faced by bandits after ditching his friends.In truth,his friends are riding on horses to get their gold back from him.They arrived too late.Chilling.....
Rating:
Summary: Badges? We don't need no stinkin' badges!
Review: The heck with the African Queen, this was Humphrey Bogart's finest role. This role was pure evil, psychologically imbalanced and a tour-de-force. Bogart should have won the Oscar that year (1948 - Laurence Olivier for Hamlet). What I liked the most about this film was the fact that there were no subtitles during the Spanish scenes. You know exactly what was happening and Director John Huston didn't sugar coat it. This is a great film.
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