Genre : Western/Action/Adventure
Starring Humphrey Bogart, Walter Huston, Tim Holt
Screenplay by John Huston based on a novel by B Traven
Directed by John Huston

This is the ultimate film about how greed can lead ordinary human beings into desperate acts and ultimately madness. There is nothing extraordinary really about Fred C. Dodds at first perhaps he is a little too cynical but he is just a starving American in Latin America begging for money and receiving it in one instance from the director John Huston in a cameo. Dodds though slowly becomes insane with greed, it is a superb performance from Bogart but quite a departure for him at the time, he is not exactly the villain but isn't the hero in the wartime or detective mould. Director Huston always though had him in mind for the part knowing his range, also excellent was Huston's father Walter as the old timer who knows all there is to know about prospecting and also warns of the corrupting power of the yellow stuff. The film has been criticised for being a bit stagey, it might be but the setting to me really takes second place to the psychology of the situation. From that point of view this is a great film with superb acting and a fitting climax.