Humphrey Bogart and John Huston

Roger Ebert puts Treasure of the Sierra Madre on the Best Movies Ever Made list. I loved Roger Ebert’s words on the movie. Here is the review in total, for those who are interested.

It tells this story with gusto and Huston’s love of male camaraderie, and it occasionally breaks into laughter — some funny, some bitterly ironic. It happens on a sun-blasted high chaparral landscape, usually desolate, except for the three gold prospectors, although gangs of bandits and villages of Indians materialize when required. At the end, it has Bogart in a delirious mad scene that falls somewhere between “King Lear” and “Greed.”

Bogart plays Fred C. Dobbs, one of the movie characters everybody can name.

The descent of his character into paranoia is, again, indicative of his greatness and also his lack of ego as an actor. He did not care about appearances. He cared about truth. Dobbs is a scary guy. A tragic guy.

Ebert talks about Walter Huston. Wasn’t he magnificent? It’s deceptively simple, what he does. I watched his acting like a hawk, because the performance is now considered a classic performance, one of the great examples of movie-acting.

Ebert:

The performance is a masterpiece by Walter Huston, John’s father, and won an Academy Award … Listen to the way the senior Huston talks, rapid-fire, without pause, as if he’s briefing them on an old tale and doesn’t have time to waste on nuance. He does a famous dance when he finally finds gold, playing the stereotype of a grizzled prospector, but see how his eyes are sometimes quiet even when he’s playing the fool; he reads every situation, knows his options, tries to slow Dobbs’ meltdown.

That’s part of it. He does “play the fool”. It is like Huston is The Fool to Bogart’s King Lear. And yet – of course – in this picture, as in Shakespeare, the Fool is always the wisest character of them all.

But Ebert ends his review with a discussion of the Dobbs character, as so fearlessly created by Humphrey Bogart:

I’ve seen “The Treasure of the Sierra Madre” many times, but watching it again today on a new DVD, I found myself gripped as always by Bogart’s closing scenes. The movie has never really been about gold but about character, and Bogart fearlessly makes Fred C. Dobbs into a pathetic, frightened, selfish man — so sick we would be tempted to pity him, if he were not so undeserving of pity. The other two characters get more or less what they deserve at the end of the film, but with less satisfaction for the audience. After Howard is taken in by an Indian tribe, there is a gratuitous shot, where a young maiden pats his whiskers and he all but winks directly at the camera; this shot, and the idyllic village life surrounding it, belong in a lesser movie.

As the stories of Howard and Curtin evaporate into convention, however, Fred C. Dobbs somehow moves to a higher level of tragedy. Hearing things in the night, desperate for a drink of water, staggering under the desert sun with the gold he valued so much, Dobbs is the tragic hero brought down precisely by his flaws. There is a pitiless stark realism in these scenes that brings the movie to honesty and truth. Leading up to them is a down-market Shakespearean soliloquy when Dobbs thinks he is a murderer and says, “Conscience. What a thing! If you believe you got a conscience, it’ll pester you to death. But if you don’t believe you got one, what could it do to ya?” He finds out.

When Dobbs, after begging for money in the streets at the beginning of the film, uses the coins to get a shave and a haircut, there is a close-up of him, as he asks John Huston (the man in the white suit, making a brief cameo) for money. He wants to go buy a whore, and so he has gotten himself gussied up. But his hair is so thin, his face is so tragic and serious. He has his thin hair combed over to one side, sleeked, he is in his 50s, his face has all these lines, he has that weird almost buck-toothed mouth… it is an unforgiving closeup.

He looks so pathetic. So … old and unattractive.

Granted: Bogart wasn’t your typical Good-looking Movie Star Guy. But still, this is the most unattractive and pathetic you will ever see him. Bogart rarely played pathetic guys, guys your heart aches for even though you would not want to spend one minute in their presence …

It’s a brave performance – completely successful – and yes, it is tragic in its scope.

Trivia about the film:

Humphrey Bogart and John Huston worked many times together:

Maltese Falcon – one of the most impressive directorial debuts in motion picture history. Bogart, already a star, agreed to do the film, after George Raft turned it down, not wanting to trust his career to an unknown director.

African Queen – Ridiculous. Awesome.

Key Largo – A great atmospheric movie.

Lauren Bacall, in her autobiography, talked a lot about Bogart’s and Huston’s working relationship. John Huston was, as Bacall said, “a genius, and I don’t use that term lightly”. But his “genius” came with all of the baggage: not wanting to be pinned down, rootless – had no sense of place or home, didn’t care if he went over on a film because he had no one to come home to (or – if he did, wife, kids, whatever – he didn’t care). Humphrey Bogart was just the opposite. He was a homebody, especially after he married Bacall and had kids. He didn’t care about traveling, he didn’t think Africa was “fascinating”, he had no curiosity about it, nothing. He just wanted to do the damn movie, and then go home to his kids, and his yacht.

Huston and Bogart often clashed.

Bogart said that Huston pushed actors to “go beyond themselves” – that he always found himself taking bigger risks, when Huston was at the helm. He loved working with a director who pushed him.

And Huston, a precursor to Coppola I suppose, and Michael Cimino, and other flamboyant extravagant directors, would never finish a movie, ever, if someone didn’t keep him on track. Bogart was usually that person. He would keep Huston on schedule. “Okay, let’s finish up with this scene today – we’ve definitely gotten what we need … Let’s move on.”

Bogart loved acting. But he loved hanging out at home, too. He wouldn’t want to stay on location for 18 months. He was a professional, and loved his home-life.

Before filming began for Sierra Madre, Bogart had entered his beloved yacht “The Santana” into some kind of big yacht race, in Honolulu. “The Santana” was his greatest passion in life, besides his passion for Bacall and for acting. He got a professional crew, he blocked out the time … it was something to look forward to, immediately following the filming.

Huston, though, showed no compunction for staying on schedule.

Bogart had made it perfectly clear: “I have a yacht race on such and such a date. You have to be finished with me by then.”

Huston: “Oh, of course, of course.”

Filming crept by, they were further and further behind schedule, and Bogart was getting more and more anxious.

“John – you promised. I have to be in Honolulu by such-and-such.”

Huston kept putting him off: “You will be! You will be!”

Bogart finally exploded when he realized that no way on earth would this film come in on schedule. “You BASTARD – YOU PROMISED – YOU’VE BEEN DICKING AROUND IN THIS DESERT LONG ENOUGH…”

Needless to say, Bogart missed his race.

But his friendship with Huston survived. Bacall asked Huston to give the eulogy at Bogart’s funeral.

And under Huston’s direction, Bogart gave some of his most memorable performances.

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