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The Treasure of the Sierra Madre is a movie that made history during its epoch. It briefly reflects the commercial importance Tampico had in the country by attracting anxious foreigners searching for oil. This movie was directed by John Huston and it is based in the novel with the same name written by Bruno Traven, a Scandinavian writer that arrived to Mexico in 1923 in search of gold. He later wrote his personal experiences to the pages of this masterpiece published in German in 1927.
Although in the novel Traven did not mention directly Tampico, this is deduced when he quotes a cosmopolitan city in Mexico benefited by the oil boom including some popular neighborhoods, the Alcázar Cinema and nearby places such as Tuxpam and Villa Cuauhtémoc, the Tamiahua Lagoon and the Pánuco River. Twenty years later after this novel was published, John Huston based on it to film an adventure movie starring Humphrey Bogart who in that time was a superstar for participating in movies such as The Maltese Falcon and Casablanca. The story is based on two tramps (Humphrey Bogart y Tim Holt) and an experienced gold digger (Walter Huston) begin an adventure searching for gold in Mexico’s hinterlands.
The film starts with scenes of Tampico where a tramp named Fred C. Dobbs, played by Humphrey Bogart, walks on the streets after being cheated by an American businessman. In these scenes you can appreciate the Liberty Square, the buildings that surround it as well as the gates of Ribera Street. The main character then meets Bob Curtin and Old Howard, an experienced gold digger with no money who encourages them to begin the expedition. In this movie, the search of gold triggers greed, avarice and distrust, but at the same time friendship and loyalty are put to the test. Every theme is treated in an excellent way by John Huston. The Sierra Madre Treasure was the first American movie to be mostly filmed outside the United States. The only scenes that were filmed in a studio were those that happened at night. Choosing Tampico as a starting point for this adventure represented a great pride for the city since it got international projection, although it did not appear that much in the movie.
The Treasure of the Sierra Madre won in 1949 three Oscars. Two of them were for John Huston, one for best director and the second one for best adapted script. His father Walter Huston won the Oscar for best supporting actor. The movie was also nominated for best movie. It also won three Golden Globes for best drama movie, best director and best supporting actor and it is ranked among the best 100 films of all times by The American Film Institute. As a tribute to the production of this movie, a bronze statue of Humphrey Bogart in his role of Fred C. Dobbs was recently placed outside the building of the Antiguo Salón Palacio. |
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León Trotsky in Tampico
New Street Names
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