I wish I knew who B. Traven was. He wrote the novel this film is based on, and it's a good read. There are stories that he was a German. Maybe he was. The dialogue has little German touches in it. Traven surely lived in modest circumstances in Mexico, the details and dynamics of run-down hotels being far too accurate to have been made up in a comfortable armchair.
But it's not really important. Huston and his cast and crew have turned the novel into a movie that is as good as anything likely to show up on the screen. It's an astounding achievement. I can't even begin to list the moments that stamp themselves indelibly into one's memory, but I will mention one, just en passant, so to speak. After killing his partner and friend, Bogart lies down next to a fire and tries to go to sleep. He talks to himself dismissively about "conscience" and how it only bothers you if you let it, and the fake, sulfurous fire blazes up higher and higher between the actor and the camera until he seems to be consumed by the flame.
Alfonso Bedoya. He made a few other movies but nothing resembling this one. What lines he is given!
"Aww, come on. Throw that old iron over here."
"There's a good business for Jew."
And the unforgettable "batches,"which doesn't need repeating.
It is surely one of Huston's best films. A lesser director could have ruined the novel's plot. But Huston adds his own touches. Cody is killed, shot through the neck, and the old man reads a letter from his wife, retrieved from Cody's pocket. But -- he doesn't know how to read big words!
So Curtin takes the letter and reads it. It's not just a directorial flash in the pan, because the scene resonates at the end of the movie when Curtin rides off to meet Cody's wife in the blossom-blooming peach orchard. What I mean is that the letter-reading scene is there for a larger purpose than simply adding to our appreciation of the characters at that particular moment.
The fight with Pat in the cantina. Absolutely nothing happens the way it had always happened in previous movies. Huston stages it in a way that an artist would think of. In all movies before this one, fights involved (1) a general melee in which no one wins or loses, or (2) one clip on the jaw and the guy is unconscious.
Here, MacCormack, the heavy, done very nicely by Barton Maclaine, abruptly bashes one guy over the head with a bottle of booze and socks the other one. Both victims crumple. But somebody grabs Pat's legs as he walks towards the door. More blows. Bodies slump to the floor and they have a hell of a time getting back up on their feet. More blows. Pat is finally beaten to the floor and he's not unconscious. "Okay. Enough, fellas. I'm beat. I can't see." Bogart and Tim Holt take only the money that is owing to them, and Curtin (Holt) comes up with, "Let's beat it before the law arrives." Before the law arrives. That's straight out of Traven's novel and is one of the reasons people believe he wasn't that familiar with the English language. Not that it doesn't fit -- but the use of "arrives" is just a tad formal.
I could go on listing one scene after another that is simply outstanding. I watched this repeatedly with my ten year old kid, Josh, who finally memorized almost every word of the script. I showed it in classes in psychology at Camp Lejeune in North Carolina as an almost flawless depiction of an ego defense mechanism called "projection." The Marines loved it. I loved it. My kid loved it. John Simon loved it. Rush Limbaugh loved it. Martha Stewart loved it. Rachel Maddow loved it. Napoleon Bonaparte loved it. Moses loved it. Lenin loved it. St. Peter, when not attending the pearly gates, watches it on cable TV. (No commercials.) Everybody loves it -- and for good reasons.
But it's not really important. Huston and his cast and crew have turned the novel into a movie that is as good as anything likely to show up on the screen. It's an astounding achievement. I can't even begin to list the moments that stamp themselves indelibly into one's memory, but I will mention one, just en passant, so to speak. After killing his partner and friend, Bogart lies down next to a fire and tries to go to sleep. He talks to himself dismissively about "conscience" and how it only bothers you if you let it, and the fake, sulfurous fire blazes up higher and higher between the actor and the camera until he seems to be consumed by the flame.
Alfonso Bedoya. He made a few other movies but nothing resembling this one. What lines he is given!
"Aww, come on. Throw that old iron over here."
"There's a good business for Jew."
And the unforgettable "batches,"which doesn't need repeating.
It is surely one of Huston's best films. A lesser director could have ruined the novel's plot. But Huston adds his own touches. Cody is killed, shot through the neck, and the old man reads a letter from his wife, retrieved from Cody's pocket. But -- he doesn't know how to read big words!
So Curtin takes the letter and reads it. It's not just a directorial flash in the pan, because the scene resonates at the end of the movie when Curtin rides off to meet Cody's wife in the blossom-blooming peach orchard. What I mean is that the letter-reading scene is there for a larger purpose than simply adding to our appreciation of the characters at that particular moment.
The fight with Pat in the cantina. Absolutely nothing happens the way it had always happened in previous movies. Huston stages it in a way that an artist would think of. In all movies before this one, fights involved (1) a general melee in which no one wins or loses, or (2) one clip on the jaw and the guy is unconscious.
Here, MacCormack, the heavy, done very nicely by Barton Maclaine, abruptly bashes one guy over the head with a bottle of booze and socks the other one. Both victims crumple. But somebody grabs Pat's legs as he walks towards the door. More blows. Bodies slump to the floor and they have a hell of a time getting back up on their feet. More blows. Pat is finally beaten to the floor and he's not unconscious. "Okay. Enough, fellas. I'm beat. I can't see." Bogart and Tim Holt take only the money that is owing to them, and Curtin (Holt) comes up with, "Let's beat it before the law arrives." Before the law arrives. That's straight out of Traven's novel and is one of the reasons people believe he wasn't that familiar with the English language. Not that it doesn't fit -- but the use of "arrives" is just a tad formal.
I could go on listing one scene after another that is simply outstanding. I watched this repeatedly with my ten year old kid, Josh, who finally memorized almost every word of the script. I showed it in classes in psychology at Camp Lejeune in North Carolina as an almost flawless depiction of an ego defense mechanism called "projection." The Marines loved it. I loved it. My kid loved it. John Simon loved it. Rush Limbaugh loved it. Martha Stewart loved it. Rachel Maddow loved it. Napoleon Bonaparte loved it. Moses loved it. Lenin loved it. St. Peter, when not attending the pearly gates, watches it on cable TV. (No commercials.) Everybody loves it -- and for good reasons.