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movie review - The Treasure of the Sierra Madre

the journal of Michael Werneburg

twenty-seven years and one million words

"Badges? We don't got to show you no stinking badges!" This line came as a surprise toward the end of this gritty 1948 tale about some desperate Americans in Mexico who successfully mine gold out of a hillside. Two of them are basically homeless drifters, who meet early in the film and eventually meet the experienced prospector who makes the mine possible.

The pacing of the movie is somewhat slow, and the dialog sounds like it was delivered for the stage not film. But that's true of many movies of the era, and why not -- cinema was still fairly new and the actors were mostly trained for the stage. What I enjoyed about it was the authentic feeling of the characters -- one of the drifters more or less keeps it together despite insane conditions, while the other deteriorates into a selfish, paranoid wreck. The story presents so many challenges for the trio that this is no wonder, I'd probably have done the same. The characters are sorely tested all along, and the end is simply astounding. This is a great story.

Strongly recommended.