sierra madre

One of the most well-known lines from a Western is widely misquoted: “Badges? We don’t need no stinking badges!” Actually, in the 1948 classic “The Treasure of the Sierria Madre”, the Mexican bandit leader (Alfonso Bedoya) tries to convince Fred C. Dobbs (Humphrey Bogart) that he and his men are Federales. Dobbs asks “If you’re the police, where are your badges?” And the bandit replies, “Badges? We ain’t got no badges. We don’t need no badges! I don’t have to show you any stinkin’ badges!”

The Treasure of the Sierra Madre employs themes that are much more complicated than we are first led to believe. The moralizing that takes place in the film is ruled by a spirited, categorical thought which demonstrates how intemperance breeds the seed of its own destruction. John Huston is not interested in depicting particular examples of avarice, but rather avarice itself. Avarice – a universal human character trait – is the major theme of the film. The great appeal of the film is that Huston allows Dobbs (Humphrey Bogart) to destroy himself without having to resort to anything less than universally recognized values.