The Power of Greed
Greed is an immensely powerful phenomenon, has been since the beginning of time. Dobbs, a homeless man in Mexico, becomes overrun with greed and paranoia after he and his two gold prospecting partners manage to strike it rich in the hills of the Sierra Madre.
Before getting to that point though, the first thirty minutes or so of the film detail Dobbs and his very poor financial state. In Mexico, where most of the movie was actually filmed, Dobbs struggles to eat being both out of money and out of work. While asking for money one day, he is offered a hard labor job that he takes. Problem is, after the work is done, he doesn’t get paid, and he’s back to square one. He does however meet Tim Holt’s character, Curtin. These two, both struggling to get by, manage to run into Huston’s character, Howard. Howard, an old timer with previous prospecting success, is all too familiar with what gold, and therefore greed, can do to a man. But, with his own fortune gone, he’s eager to go on another gold hunt. When the trio all pitch in to pay for supplies, the hunt is on.
Howard leads them into the hills, where they eventually find a nice vein of gold. For the remaining one-
and-a-half-hour of the film, you’ll be witness to a very interesting study of character. You will see the
changing nature of Dobbs as his greed and paranoia continue to escalate. His change in character is somewhat sudden, but its effects take a while to propagate, giving the viewer all the more time to soak in this powerful ‘thing’ known as greed.
All the while, the acting and direction are top notch. The film maintains thoroughly captivating throughout
as the trio deal with nature, bandits, and each other. It’s one of those films that you hope ends well, but, is instead destined to exemplify a failure in human nature.
Treasure On Blu-ray
As with The Maltese Falcon, expect the original full frame image in black and white. The image quality is
crisp for the most part, but oddly, there are several scenes, most lasting just a second or a few, that are
lacking that crispness. These rare scenes are heavy with grain and standout noticeably, which is a shame. They don’t ruin what is an otherwise great image quality, but they do mar it some. The audio is DTS-HD 1.0 track with French and Spanish languages supported as well. There are also several different languages available in subtitles.
There are several extra features included. They are:
Warner Night At The Movies (SD, 29m)
-Intro by Leonard Maltin
–Key Largo Trailer
-Newsreel
–Hot Cross Bunny animated short
-So You Want To Be A Detective
-Audio Commentary with Eric Lax (Bogart Biographer)
-John Huston: The Man, The Movies, The Maverick (SD, 2h8m)
-Discovering Treasure: The Story of The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (SD, 50m)
–8 Ball Bunny
-4/18/1949 Lux Radio Theater Broadcast
-Trailer
With that, lets get to the summary…