1948: The Treasure of the Sierra Madre

Screenplay by John Huston
Adapted from the novel The Treasure of the Sierra Madre by B. Traven

Two young, down-and-out Americans join up with an old, experienced prospector to mine for gold in Mexico and discover that it's a far more difficult and complicated job than they had anticipated.

I had seen this movie before, but literally the only thing I remembered about it was the famous line about "stinking badges". Unlike the movie Casablanca, which originated most of its iconic lines, the stinking badges part was, in fact, taken from the book, although the language in the rest of the sentence was toned down a bit in the movie. In fact, apart from a couple notable exceptions, my overall impression is that the movie was very consistent with the book, except that it eliminated most of the swearing. But this was 1948, so that shouldn't surprise anyone.

The book is quite good, but I think most of the changes the film made actually enhanced the story. There are several characters in the book who are described in great detail and then disappear after about a chapter, and the film combines some of them, which results in stronger characters and ties everything together nicely. A couple of Curtin's important moments are given to Dobbs in the film, which I initially thought was because Dobbs is played by Humphrey Bogart and they wanted to feature him more, but after watching further I realized a later character change wouldn't have made sense if they hadn't substituted Dobbs for Curtin earlier. The film eliminates several sections of the book, but none of them were essential to the story. And the parts of the story that didn't change were pretty much flawlessly transitioned to the screen: in particular, Walter Huston acts exactly as Howard is described in the book, and the way the other two become gradually more and more disillusioned and less and less sane is portrayed beautifully, and much more concisely, on screen. I'm tempted to say that the movie is actually better than the book, which was no mean feat, so I salute screenwriter John Huston, who also directed and had a cameo in the film.

The one change I objected to was regarding the man who unexpectedly joins the trio at their camp. For some reason, the film changed his name from Lacaud to Cody and added a rather unnecessary backstory. Also, spoiler alert, in the movie he gets killed by bandits, whereas in the book he lives.  I guess they did this so Curtin has something to do at the end (go to comfort Cody's widow), but it kind of felt like they just wanted to increase the violence, which certainly was not needed. But otherwise, it's an extraordinary adaptation, and one of the most well-deserved winners of this Oscar so far.

The next winner was A Letter to Three Wives, based on the novel Letter to Five Wives by John Klempner, so stay tuned to find out what happened to two of the wives.