Treasure and Falcon:
Their Common Theme
The “Mystery” of Traven
I was in my
hotel room in Mexico City and I awoke early in the morning. I’m one of those
people who never locks his door wherever he is. Standing at the foot of my bed
was the shadowy figure of a man. He took a card out and gave it to me. I put on
the light, it was still dark, and it said, Hal Croves, Inspector, Acapulco and
San Antonio. I said, How do you do, Mr. Croves. Then he said, I have a letter
for you from Mr. B. Traven, and he gave me the letter, which I read. It said
that he himself was unable to appear but this man knew as much about his work
as he himself did and knew as much about the circumstances and the country and
he would repesent Traven in every way. We had conversations, Croves and I, for
the few days I was in Mexico City. I gave him the script, he read it, liked
what he read and said he was sure Traven would like it very much. (4)
Adapting the Novel to a
Screenplay
Hollywood-Style
Elements
One summer when I was a kid I worked as a picker in a
peach harvest in the San Joaquin Valley. It sure was something. Hundreds of
people – old and young – whole families working together. After the day’s work
we used to build big bonfires and sit around ‘em and sing to guitar Music, till
morning sometimes. You’d go to sleep, wake up and sing, and go to sleep again.
Everybody had a wonderful time... (scene 47)
He can stay for ten years at
the same place digging and digging, convinced that he is on the right spot...
He is sure that some day he will make the big hit... I really feel sorry for
that guy... But you can’t cure these fellers, and I suppose if somebody could
cure them they wouldn’t like it. They prefer to stay this way. It’s their whole
excuse for being alive. (8)
Know why? Because they’ve
never been shown any. If our People in the States had lived in Poverty under
all sorts of Tyrannies for hundreds of years they’d have bred a race of bandits
too, every bit as cruel and bloodthirsty. Come right down to it we are bandits
of a kind. What Right have we got to go looting their mountain anyway? About as
much Right as the foreign companies that take their Oil without paying for
it... and their Silver and their Copper. (scene 96)
I think you’re wise not to
put things on a strictly Money basis, partner. Curtin might take it into his
head he was a capitalist instead of a guy with a shovel and just sit back and
take things easy and let you and me do all the work. He’d stand to realise a
tidy sum on his Investment without so much as turning his hand over. If
anybody’s to get more, I reckon it ought to be the one who does the most Work.
(scene 47)
Elements Atypical of
Hollywood
Howard (Walter Huston)
Houston the Director
Bogart, the would-be tough guy, cocks one
foot up on a rock and tries to look at the corpse as casually as if it were
fresh-killed game. Tim Holt, the essentially decent young man, comes past
behind him and, innocent and unaware of it, clasps his hands as he looks down,
in the respectful manner of a boy who used to go to church. Walter Huston, the
experienced old man, steps quietly behind both, leans to the dead man as
professionally as a doctor to a patient and gently rifles him for papers. (12)
Other Roles
My thanks to Rudy Behlmer for
answering questions about Production of the film and to Lee Sterrenberg for
talking with me about Traven’s work.
1.
See, for example, David Thomson’s A Biographical Dictionary of Film (New
York: William Morrow, 1976), p. 497.
2.
Steven Marcus, Introduction to The Continental Op by Dashiell Hammett
(New York: Random House, 1974), p. xxv.
3.
Gerald Pratley, The Cinema of John Huston (South Brunswick and New York: A.S.
Barnes, 1977), p. 59. For further discussion of Traven and the film, see Stuart
Kaminsky’s John Huston, Maker of Magic (New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1978).
4.
Pratley, The
Cinema of John Huston, p. 59.
5.
Life,
February 12, 1948, p. 36.
6.
Pratley, The
Cinema of John Huston, p. 61.
7.
Pratley, The
Cinema of John Huston, p. 60.
8.
B. Traven, The
Treasure of Sierra Madre (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1935), p. 214.
9.
See James Agee, Agee on Film, vol. 1 (New York: McDowell Obolensky, 1958), p. 399.
10.
Agee, Agee
on Film, p. 293.
11.
Agee, Agee
on Film, p. 293.
12.
Agee, Agee
on Film, p. 329.
13.
Bosley Crowther, review in New York Times, January 24, 1948, p. 11.
No comments:
Post a Comment