When the project is completed and the men return to Tampico, McCormick skips out without paying them. Dobbs and Bob Curtin, two broke American drifters, as roughnecks to help construct oil rigs for $8 per day (equivalent to $133 in 2022). In 1925, in the Mexican town of Tampico, labor contractor Pat McCormick recruits Fred C. In 1990, the film was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant". The Treasure of the Sierra Madre was one of the early Hollywood productions to be shot on location outside the United States (in the state of Durango with street scenes in Tampico, Mexico), but many scenes were filmed back in the studio and elsewhere in the U.S. Traven's 1927 novel of the same name, set in 1925, and follows two downtrodden men (played by Humphrey Bogart and Tim Holt) who join forces with a grizzled old prospector ( Walter Huston, the director's father), in searching for gold in Mexico. I imagine that further exploration into the vast uncharted territory of the B-western will yield additional gems.The Treasure of the Sierra Madre is a 1948 American Western film written and directed by John Huston. Rita herself had co-starred in a similar western in 1936, REBELLION. (No word though, about the souls who occupied the land before the Spaniards arrived, but that's another story.) I've seen another western with this plot recently, "California Frontier" (1938), starring Buck Jones as an army officer working undercover in California to thwart white landgrabbers taking land from Mexicans. Also, the whites, except for the two male stars, O'Brien and Holt, are generally bad guys here and the taking of land from its original owners is condemned. It's easy to see the roots of the glamorous movie star and pinup queen she'd become in a few short years. (The more B-westerns I see, the more I realize that appropriate ethnic casting of Mexican and Indian roles was the rule and not the exception in this genre.) Hayworth was all of 19 when she made this and she was already a great beauty, adorned in stylish western fashions that bring out the best in her. Hayworth was of Spanish descent herself (real name: Margarita Carmen Cansino) and her band is cast entirely with actual Mexican actors. This is a fascinating movie on multiple counts, not least of which is the presence of Rita Hayworth in the role of an Hispanic crusader against white depredations. O'Brien gradually falls in love with Judith himself, which complicates matters even further. Holt is torn between loyalty to Alvarez and her cause and his friendship with O'Brien. George O'Brien plays Holt's Texas Ranger buddy who joins the gang himself, working undercover, on assignment to capture and arrest Miss Alvarez. He even acquires a Mexican girlfriend (Cecilia Callejo). Tim Holt plays a frustrated ex-Texas Ranger who wholeheartedly joins Alvarez' band and helps in their efforts. She leads a band of Spaniards and Mexicans in making attacks on the ranchers who've taken their land illegally. Rita Hayworth plays Judith Alvarez, daughter of a Spanish landowner whose land has been taken by white landgrabbers working with a corrupt sheriff. THE RENEGADE RANGER (1938) is a 59-minute B-western about how white expansion in Texas forced out Spanish and Mexican landowners.
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