8.5 | / 10 |
Users | 4.8 | |
Reviewer | 4.5 | |
Overall | 4.6 |
Three prospectors, set out in search of gold but instead find mistrust, betrayal, and death.
Starring: Humphrey Bogart, Walter Huston, Tim Holt (I), Bruce Bennett (I), Barton MacLaneDrama | 100% |
Western | 30% |
Adventure | Insignificant |
Action | Insignificant |
Video codec: VC-1
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 1.37:1
Original aspect ratio: 1.37:1
English: DTS-HD Master Audio Mono (48kHz, 24-bit)
French: Dolby Digital Mono
German: Dolby Digital Mono
Portuguese: Dolby Digital Mono
Spanish: Dolby Digital Mono
Spanish: Dolby Digital Mono (Spain)
English SDH, French, German SDH, Portuguese, Spanish, Danish, Finnish, Norwegian, Swedish
50GB Blu-ray Disc
Single disc (1 BD)
Region free
Movie | 5.0 | |
Video | 4.5 | |
Audio | 4.0 | |
Extras | 4.0 | |
Overall | 4.5 |
If you were to quiz your basic film fan about who the greatest director of all time was, you’d probably get a pretty broad spectrum of answers. Griffith. Chaplin. De Mille (yes, De Mille). Wyler. Hawks. Hitchcock. Kazan. But my hunch is very few would think of John Huston. Why is that? Huston’s oeuvre is certainly filled with as many classics as all of those other names: The Maltese Falcon, Key Largo, The Asphalt Jungle, The African Queen, Moby Dick, The Night of the Iguana, The Man Who Would Be King. Sure, there are misfires and less than outright classics, but Huston’s achievement is completely singular and idiosyncratic. So why is Huston not really thought of as at least one of the greats, if not the greatest? Variety. No, not the showbiz bible, but that ability to work in a vast array of genres and still bring a level of artistic integrity and coherence to each project, no matter how disparate the subject matter between projects might be. While variety is a commendable quality to an unschooled audience, who frankly probably couldn’t care less who’s directing any given film, it defies pigeonholing, that favorite sport of cineastes, who want everyone categorized in their own easily identified compartments. That attempt is fated to fail with someone like John Huston. Can you think of another director, for just one example, who could segue so effortlessly from the roiling depths of Freud to the parlor game tricks of The List of Adrian Messenger in little more than a year? When you consider that Huston managed to also write a good many of the films he directed, acting in several of them (as well as a laundry list of other directors’ films), his accomplishments seem all the more daunting. As is mentioned in the interesting prelude voiced by Burgess Meredith in the fascinating two hour documentary about Huston included on this Blu-ray, an early misdiagnosis about his impending mortality as a very young boy led Huston to live for today, and more often than not a today filled with risky adventure. That led to a life of protean accomplishment, as well as a certain pathway strewn with the debris of failed relationships, including five marriages and too many affairs and dalliances to easily count. Atop this mountain of a man’s life, teetering ever so cynically as so many of Huston’s own characters did, is a film that took decades to make it from the page to the screen and remains one of the greatest classics from the ebbing years of Hollywood’s Golden Era, The Treasure of the Sierra Madre.
Editor's Note: the Blu-ray release of 'The Treasure of the Sierra Madre' is presented at its original aspect ratio of 1.37:1. The images included in this
review are not representative of the disc's quality.
Now, this is what a classic Warner black and white Blu-ray should look like! I'm still preparing for brickbats to come my way over some qualms I
had with The Maltese Falcon's image quality, but I'm more convinced than ever that my assessment of that film isn't completely crazy
after having seen the spectacular results of The Treasure of the Sierra Madre's VC-1 encoded 1080p 1.37:1 image. Yes, of course Sierra
Madre is seven years newer than Falcon, but that alone can't completely account for the wonderfully sharp image we're presented here.
There's none of the even minor softness I discussed in my Falcon review. Instead, we are greeted with impeccable levels of detail, and rich and
almost palpable contrast, with deep, inky blacks and beautiful gray shades that bring out every nuance of Ted McCord's luscious cinematography. The
dusty scenes in the desert never devolve into digital noise, and the set-bound pieces are rich with shadow detail. Grain is completely natural looking,
giving the film a beautifully rich texture. Even usually tricky items like herringbone patterns on some men's suitjackets don't lead to any artifacting.
The Treasure of the Sierra Madre is presented on Blu-ray with a very clean and crisp sounding lossless DTS-HD Master Audio mono mix. While the soundfield is obviously very narrow, dialogue, sound effects (especially some nice wind effects) and Max Steiner's glorious score are all perfectly balanced. Madre suffers from the same age-related hiss that Falcon does, though in this case it's a bit more negligible. That said, some extreme highs are slightly tinny sounding here, probably more the result of the original recording techniques than anything else. All in all, though, this is a problem free soundtrack when taking its age into consideration.
While Sierra Madre may not have the sheer number of extras included on The Maltese Falcon, there's quality here
galore:
No finer portrait of the dissolution of a partnership as greed and paranoia take over has ever made it to the screen. With sterling work by Walter Huston and Bogart, wonderfully evocative location photography, and one of the more penetrating screenplays of its era, The Treasure of the Sierra Madre "don't need no stinkin' badges" to prove its worth. It's an undeniable all time classic, and it's received a wonderful upgrade on the Blu-ray. Highly recommended.
1969
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Il buono, il brutto, il cattivo
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C'era una volta il West / Paramount Presents #44
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Per un Pugno di Dollari
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2015
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Warner Archive Collection
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