“I know what gold does to men’s souls.”

Directed by John Huston, The Treasure of the Sierra Madre is a psychological action thriller set in Mexico in 1925. Humphrey Bogart, Tim Holt and Walter Huston (John’s father) play Fred, Bob and Howard, three grizzled prospectors who are thrown together and head to the hills in search of gold. We focus initially on Fred – a tempestuous grifter who is perpetually suspicious of the motivations of others. Bob is more balanced and pragmatic, whilst Howard is the guru of the group – sensing where the gold lies and on one last trip to make enough money to retire happily. Whilst the initially find success, inevitably the trip is bewitched by a combination of external threats (bands of Mexican criminals looking for arms) and internal threats (Fred’s descent into paranoia).

It’s a great thriller – Bogart’s performance as the dangerous and unbalanced Fred the stand out, but matched by Walter Huston’s humorous and humanistic Howard. It’s a film that flips in the middle – it starts by pretending to be about gold and then becomes a film about people, about the corruption of greed and about how, despite the lack of material reward, charity can give you a traditionally happy ending. John Huston’s direction eschews the John Ford vistas for a more intimate presentation of the landscape: jungles, rocky outcrops, abandoned villages and caves all capture the prospectors and, effectively, kettle them together.

It’s an absorbing and well structured piece with a trio of stand-out veteran performances. Watch in a double bill with Ford’s The Searchers.