I guess it's sort of ironic that the most recognizable line from "The Treasure of the Sierra Madre" is uttered by a minor character, a Mexican bandit known only as Gold Hat.
"Badges? We ain't got no badges! We don't need no badges! I don't have to show you any stinking badges!" Gold Hat exclaims when Humphrey Bogart's character asks to see badges after Gold Hat says he and his men are mounted police. The American Film Institute rates that line as the 36th most recognizable line in a movie in the last 100 years.
I guess there is a certain allegorical quality in Gold Hat's name, considering that "The Treasure of the Sierra Madre" was probably the finest film about greed until "Wall Street" came along about 40 years later.
And gold was obviously at the heart of things in "The Treasure of the Sierra Madre." It is what brings Bogart, Tim Holt and Walter Huston together. It is the thing for which they sweat and struggle and sacrifice for months. And it is lost at the end of the movie when bandits mistake the gold for ordinary sand and scatter it to the winds.
In addition to telling a great story, the movie also made motion picture history. John Huston won an Oscar for Best Director. His father, Walter, won an Oscar for Best Supporting Actor. It was the first father–son win in Oscar history.
Nearly 40 years later, John's daughter Anjelica became the third–generation Academy Award winner in the Huston family when she won an Oscar as Best Actress for her performance in "Prizzi's Honor." (Ironically, that was one of John's last directorial efforts.)
But it seems to me that the line is almost symbolic of the hubris that often accompanies greed. Although Gold Hat and his men can be seen as frightful stereotypes in the 21st century, they are essential to the telling of the story.
And it's a story that seems to be at least as old as the oldest tales in the Bible. It's the story of greed, and it's the story of lust (in this case, the lust for treasure) and it's the story of values.
Turner Classic Movies showed it this afternoon as part of its "31 Days of Oscar" salute. I would have mentioned it here earlier, but TCM shows it fairly frequently. If you missed it, I'm sure you'll get another chance.
Seize it.
