The Treasure of the Sierra Madre Page #3

Synopsis: Fred C. Dobbs and Bob Curtin, both down on their luck in Tampico, Mexico in 1925, meet up with a grizzled prospector named Howard and decide to join with him in search of gold in the wilds of central Mexico. Through enormous difficulties, they eventually succeed in finding gold, but bandits, the elements, and most especially greed threaten to turn their success into disaster.
Director(s): John Huston
Production: WARNER BROTHERS PICTURES
  Won 3 Oscars. Another 12 wins & 5 nominations.
 
IMDB:
8.3
Metacritic:
99
Rotten Tomatoes:
100%
NOT RATED
Year:
1948
126 min
3,241 Views


- Sure enough.

Just look at that fat, rich, printed number.

That's the kind of sugar poppa likes.

200 pesos.

Welcome, sweet little smackeroos.

Here, son, here's a present for you

with my blessing.

[Boy thanking Dobbs in Spanish]

Would you like to shake the hand

that bought that ticket?

- Congratulations.

- Congratulations, yourself.

You stand to profit out of this

the same as I do.

How do you make that out?

Didn't he just say we needed $600?

That's what we've got now, ain't it?

- Yeah, but...

- But what?

Why are you putting up for me?

DOBBS:
This is an

all-or-nothing proposition.

If we make a find,

we'll be lighting our cigars with $100 bills.

If not, the difference

between what you and I put up...

ain't enough to keep me

from being where I was this afternoon:

Polishing a bench

with the seat of my pants.

DOBBS:
Put her there, part.

[Dramatic instrumental music]

[Train horn hooting]

We'll buy our burros at Perla and

head northwest away from the railroad.

It's no use looking near a railroad...

or any kind of a road at all...

because construction engineers examine

every bit of ground around the road...

while they're building them.

We got to go where there's no trails...

where no surveyor or anyone who knows

anything of prospecting has been before.

The best place to go to is...

where any salaried person wouldn't go,

because he wouldn't want to risk his hide.

[Crashing]

[Gun firing]

[Fast-paced instrumental music]

[Yelling in Spanish]

[Gun firing]

I got three of them!

How many did you get?

CURTIN:
Couple.

DOBBS:
I'm one up. I bet I got more.

I got three. Nice shooting?

That bullet hole's two inches

from my head. That was close.

CURTIN:
The bullets were flying

thick and fast.

It sounded like a swarm of bees here.

That bandit with the gold hat,

I had my sights on him, nice as you please.

The train gave a jolt and I missed.

Wish I'd got him.

Big boulder on the track so train stop.

Bandits got big surprise because soldiers

on the train waiting for them.

Not many passengers get killed.

Here's where we're bound for.

Don't show whether there's mountain,

swamp or desert.

That shows the makers of the map

don't know.

Once on the ground,

we open our eyes and look around.

Blow our noses, too.

Believe it or not, I knew a fellow...

who could smell gold

like a jackass can smell water.

[Ranchero speaking Spanish]

[Burros braying]

[Speaking Spanish]

[Continues speaking Spanish]

What's all that about?

We're going into country

very wild and dangerous.

Have to cut through jungles...

and climb mountains so high

they rise above the clouds.

Tigers so strong they can climb trees

with burros in their mouths. Good.

Glad to hear such tall tales 'cause it

means few outsiders have set foot there.

Well, let's get going.

[Adventurous instrumental music]

[Soothing instrumental music]

[Upbeat instrumental music]

[Slow instrumental music]

If there was gold in them mountains,

how long would it have been there?

Millions and millions of years, wouldn't it?

What's our hurry?

A couple of days more or less

ain't going to make any difference.

CURTIN:
Remember what you said

back in Tampico...

about having to pack that old man

on our backs?

[Both panting]

That was when I took him

for an ordinary human being...

not part goat.

Look at him climb, will you?

[Upbeat instrumental music]

What gets me is how he can go all day

in the sun without any water.

Maybe he's part camel, too.

If I'd known what prospecting meant...

I'd have stayed in Tampico

and waited for another job to turn up.

[Suspenseful instrumental music]

CURTIN:
What's the matter?

DOBBS:
Look.

Look at it glitter. It's yellow, too, like...

Gold.

Howard! Howard!

Howard! Howard!

Come back, we've found something!

Look, Curt, there's a vein of it,

here, in this rock.

Look here. Look, it's all around.

What else could it be?

Only gold shines and glitters like that.

We've struck it, Curt.

Look, from the looks of things...

we've struck it rich.

Look, it's all over here.

- We found a what do you call it...

- Mother lode.

- That's right.

- Howard!

BOTH:
Come on. Look.

DOBBS:
Here, look at this rock.

It's full of gold. Veins of it.

This stuff wouldn't pay your dinner

for a carload.

It ain't gold?

Pyrite. Fool's gold.

Not that there ain't

plenty of the real stuff here.

We've walked over it four or five times.

A place yesterday looked like

rich diggings, but the water...

for washing the sand was 11 miles away.

The other places, there wasn't much gold

to pay us a good day's wages.

Next time you strike it rich, holler for me...

before you start splashing water around.

Water's precious.

Sometimes it can be more precious

than gold.

Burro.

[Wind whistling]

- What's up?

- Norther, looks like.

CURTIN:
A "norther"? What's a "norther"?

Big winds from the north

this time of year...

when they blow hard, this desert country

stands right up on its hind legs!

[Dramatic instrumental music]

[Birds hooting]

There's only a few more miles

of this heavy stuff.

Pretty soon we'll be out of this valley.

[Monkey gibbering]

[Animals grunting]

[Monkeys screeching]

[Both snoring]

You fellows, how about some beans?

You want some beans?

Going through some mighty rough country

tomorrow. You better have some beans.

[Playing cheerful song on harmonica]

[Somber instrumental music]

DOBBS:
You know what I'm thinking?

I'm thinking we ought to give up...

leave the whole outfit...

everything behind.

Go back to civilization.

What's that you say? Go back?

Tell my old grandmother!

I got two elegant bedfellows

who kick at the first drop of rain...

and hide in the closet

when thunder rumbles.

What great prospectors.

Two shoe clerks reading

about prospecting for gold...

in the Land of the Midnight Sun,

south of the border or west of the Rockies.

Shut your trap or I'll smash your head flat!

Go ahead, throw it. If you did,

you'd never leave this place alive.

Without me, you two would die here

more miserable than rats.

Leave him alone.

Can't you see the old man's nuts?

Nuts, am I? Let me tell you something,

my fine bedfellows.

There's nothing to compare you with.

You're dumber than the dumbest jackass.

Look at each other.

Did you ever see anything like yourself

for being dumb specimens?

[Howard cackling]

You're so dumb...

you don't even see the riches

you're treading on with your own feet.

Don't expect to find nuggets

of molten gold.

It's not that rich.

Here ain't the place to dig.

It comes from someplace further up.

Up there.

Up there's where we've got to go.

[Victorious instrumental music]

DOBBS:
Is that it?

HOWARD:
That's it, all right.

DOBBS:
Gold, I mean.

Sure don't look like I thought it would.

CURTIN:
Not much different from sand.

DOBBS:
Yeah. It's just like plain sand.

It don't glitter. I thought it would.

It will when it's refined by some other guy.

All we got to do is mine it

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John Huston

John Marcellus Huston (; August 5, 1906 – August 28, 1987) was an Irish-American film director, screenwriter and actor. Huston was a citizen of the United States by birth but renounced U.S. citizenship to become an Irish citizen and resident. He returned to reside in the United States where he died. He wrote the screenplays for most of the 37 feature films he directed, many of which are today considered classics: The Maltese Falcon (1941), The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948), The Asphalt Jungle (1950), The African Queen (1951), The Misfits (1961), Fat City (1972) and The Man Who Would Be King (1975). During his 46-year career, Huston received 15 Oscar nominations, won twice, and directed both his father, Walter Huston, and daughter, Anjelica Huston, to Oscar wins in different films. Huston was known to direct with the vision of an artist, having studied and worked as a fine art painter in Paris in his early years. He continued to explore the visual aspects of his films throughout his career, sketching each scene on paper beforehand, then carefully framing his characters during the shooting. While most directors rely on post-production editing to shape their final work, Huston instead created his films while they were being shot, making them both more economical and cerebral, with little editing needed. Most of Huston's films were adaptations of important novels, often depicting a "heroic quest," as in Moby Dick, or The Red Badge of Courage. In many films, different groups of people, while struggling toward a common goal, would become doomed, forming "destructive alliances," giving the films a dramatic and visual tension. Many of his films involved themes such as religion, meaning, truth, freedom, psychology, colonialism and war. Huston has been referred to as "a titan", "a rebel", and a "renaissance man" in the Hollywood film industry. Author Ian Freer describes him as "cinema's Ernest Hemingway"—a filmmaker who was "never afraid to tackle tough issues head on." more…

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Submitted on August 05, 2018

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