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[[File:treasureposter.jpg|thumbnail|300px|left|Movie poster for ''The Treasure of the Sierra Madre.'']]

Tampico, Mexico of 1925 is where the tale begins. Two Americans, Fred C. Dobbs and Bob Curtin (Humphrey Bogart and Tim Holt) are subsisting on the hand-outs of strangers in Mexico. It is never discussed why the men have drifted south of the U.S. border, rather, it is left to the viewer to draw his own conclusions. As the original novel was written in 1927, it is possible that Dobbs and Curtin—— portrayed as men in their mid-thirties—— are veterans of the Great War. Another scenario is that they became disillusioned or neglected by the financial boom of the 1920’s. Regardless of their back-story, Dobbsie and Curt (as they refer to each other) are destitute members of the labor class who no longer fit into American society. They struggle daily to exist without purpose or intention, until they wander into the “Oso Negro.”

The Oso is essentially a flop house with cheap cots laid closely together. This is where Dobbsie and Curt encounter Howard (Walter Huston), the older but spry prospector. As the two ex-patriots drop onto their cots, Howard is regaling a captive audience with tales of his illustrious days as a prospector and miner. At the time, gold was worth twenty dollars per ounce. A member of Howard’s audience wonders if gold is so valuable due to the fact that it is a rare find. Howard corrects his young friend, telling him that gold is all around, just waiting to be found. The true reason that gold is so valuable he explains is, “An ounce of gold, mister, is worth what it is because of the human labor that went into the finding and the getting of it.” “Human labor,” the key to Howard’s logic, is apropos to the Marxist theory of labor power. In “Wage Labor and Capital,” Marx claims that the “capitalist buys this labor power,” and uses this human labor to further his profit.<ref>Karl Marx, “Wage Labor and Capital,” in ''Literary Theory: An Anthology,'' 2nd ed., ed. Julie Rivkin and Michael Ryan (Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2004), 657.</ref>Conversely, the worker sells his labor simply to survive. This is the message Howard delivers to a group of men who are all of the labor class. Howard’s audience consists of a group of men, primarily Americans, who are living hand to mouth and sleeping on filthy cots in a Mexican flop house. This ilk is the very antithesis of the bourgeois class.

[[File:Karl_Marx_001.jpg|thumbnail|250px|left|Karl Marx.]]

John Huston employs implicit symbolism to convey the Marxian message that those who produce are exploited by those who profit from production. The greatest emblematic tool at Huston’s disposal is the mountain itself. Dobbsie, Curt, and Howard exploit and transform the mountain for their own profit. They literally climb to the top, as capitalists figuratively do, on the back of the mountain. Like the workers’ labor power, gold is the mountain’s commodity. Also like the worker “whose sole source of livelihood is the sale of his labor power,” the mountain “cannot leave the whole class of purchasers, that is, the capitalist class, without renouncing his [its] existence.”<ref>Marx, “Wage Labor and Capital,” 661.</ref>The mountain possesses a commodity, which the fledgling capitalists——Dobbs, Curtin, and Howard——feel free to consume as their own purchase. Further, when the prospectors discover gold, they begin the transformation into the loathsome capitalists who exploited them a short time ago.

Before encountering Howard in the Oso, Dobbsie and Curt hire on as laborers in Tampico. They find work rigging mines for a contractor named, Pat. After a couple of weeks of rigorous work in the Tampico heat, Curt, Dobbsie, and the rest of the crew, return to town expecting to collect their wages. The conniving boss manages to temporarily skirt the issue of money, claiming that he will go to town and return with the men’s pay. The next scene portrays Dobbsie and Curt destitute and again begging wages from “fellow Americans.” As they muddle through the streets, soaked in the filth of their labor, they spy Pat in a new suit of clothes, strolling down the street with a beautiful, young woman. The clothing alone symbolically communicates the Marxian notion that while the capitalist thrives and profits, the “worker receives a means of subsistence” and nothing more.<ref>Marx, "Wage Labor and Capital," 663.</ref>Pat profited from the labor of Dobbs and Curtin, thus garnering more capital for further profit. Dobbsie and Curt, however, are not inclined to allow Pat to bask in the fruits of their labor, while they go hungry.

Our heroes follow Pat into a cantina and demand their money. Pat buys them a drink, trying to work his way back into their favor. The two men hold firm to their desire for their due wages and soon a fight ensues; instigated by Pat. When fighting Pat individually, the men have no success, but when they work together they are able to knock Pat down into a stupor. Dobbsie grabs Pat’s wallet and takes ''only'' the wages due to him and Curt. This scene is very telling in that it portrays the capitalist as a cheat who cannot be defeated by one lone man. Huston is conveying the message that there is strength in numbers and that in unity the proletariat class can overcome the exploitation of the capitalist. Once they have done this, they now set out with Howard to overcome their static proletariat state. Now, John Huston takes the viewer on a journey to discover what happens to the labor class once the capitalist has been overthrown.

[[File:sympathetic bogie.jpg|thumbnail|250px|Humphrey Bogart as Fred C. Dobbs. This is the sympathetic manner in which Dobbs is depicted near the start of the film.]]

While loading their mules at the base of the mountain, Dobbsie states that regardless of how much gold the mountain holds, he will take just what he came for and go, “even if there was a million left to find.” The camera then finds Howard’s face to depict his disbelief. For we must remember, Howard knows “what gold does to men’s souls.” Once the three begin their trek up the mountain on their “business venture,” they are now capitalists. They use their own money to furnish tools and equipment. Though they do indeed rely on their own labor, the mountain now becomes symbolic of the commodity that Marx names “labor power.” Whereas the three prospectors embark with the intent of profiting from this business venture, the mountain (laborer) holds a commodity that is a “life-activity…a means to enable him to exist.”<ref>Marx, "Wage Labor," 660.</ref>Howard remains skeptical whereas Dobbs and Curtin have every intention of returning to Tampico with “bags full of gold.”

his personality.

Dobbsie begins to talk to himself and display symptoms of paranoia. When he awakens one night to discover Howard is gone from the tent, he frantically suspects that Howard has gone off to hunt for his stash of gold. Another occasion of Dobbsie’s paranoia is depicted when Curt and Howard send him to the village for supplies. Dobbs assumes the other two will abscond with his riches while he is gone. These two instances are clear cases of projection on the part of Dobbs. He fears Howard and Curt will do what he himself might do; reap profits from the labor of others.

[[File:crazybogie.jpg|thumbnail|250px|Bogart as Dobbs late in the picture. He is far less sympathetic and has a menacing appearance.]]

Dobbs, Curtin, and Howard are three men grouped together in one unit. When one member of the group departed, the cohesive strength of the assemblage diminished. In the film there are two occasions when Howard physically leaves the group, leaving Curt and Dobbs to fend for themselves. Dobbsie mentally left the group when notions of wealth entered his mind and his soul was permeated by greed.

In the end, Dobbsie not only figuratively lost his head, but did so literally at the hands of the bandits. Howard and Curt returned from the mountain safely, though lost all of their treasure to nature. The bandits took the sacks of gold from Dobbsie, who had absconded with all of the gold. They mistook the gold dust for sand and broke the bags open in the midst of a dust storm. By the time Curt and Howard arrived, their precious gold was blowing back to the mountain from which it came. The men laughed at the cruel joke played upon them by nature and realized they were no worse off than when they started. The only difference was that Dobbsie was missing. Due to greed and disunity, Dobbs lost his friends, his sanity, and his life. That is the message of Fred C. Dobbs and ''The Treasure of the Sierra Madre.''

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*[[Thomas Jefferson, the Founding Fathers and Christianity: Interview with Sam Haselby]]

*[[Social History of American Medicine Top Ten Booklist]]

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