This also won Best Picture, but it's from Warner Bros. not Columbia so it's not part of my box set. I had to get this one from Netflix. It's a good film, and a classic one, but it's not destined to be one of my favorites.Two down-and-out Americans, Dobbs (Humphrey Bogart) and Curtin (Tim Holt), are bumming around Mexico. They overhear an old-timer (Walter Huston) talking about the fortunes he's made and lost while prospecting for gold. Deciding that they have nothing to lose, they talk the old guy into teaming up with them and head off into the Sierra Madre mountain range. After a grueling couple of weeks of travel, Dobbs and Curtin are ready to pack it in when they hit paydirt. They then proceed to basically ignore every single one of the old man's stories about how big seams of gold manage to bring out the worst in people.
This is probably Bogart's most unpleasant character, and that's including his turn on The African Queen. Bogey is one of the most naturally laconic actors ever to be on screen, and seeing him attempt to give Dobbs a kind of manic energy was a little off-putting as well. It just didn't feel very natural. It probably didn't help that I was sitting there thinking "that's Humphrey Bogart, actor" instead of "that's Fred C. Dobbs, prospector" but what are you going to do? Man's an icon. That, and the ending is kind of a kick in the teeth. I know it's supposed to be and I can even appreciate what it is saying. But I don't have to like it.
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