The Red Badge of Courage

John Huston, 1951, bw (8.4*)
The master director once said this was his best film, but that was about 1951 and long before his illustrious career was done (he was yet to make The Man Who Would Be King as well), also perhaps before it was cut by the studio. There are some amazing Civil War battle sequences in this filming of the Stephen Crane classic novel, written when he was just 22, about a youth having a hard time adjusting to battle. A young looking Audie Murphy was a good choice, he was a decorated WW2 hero.

This is really some of Huston’s best black and white work, almost expressionistic at times with so much dust and smoke from battle that you can barely see what’s happening; soldiers appear like ghosts from the dust in front. Unfortunately, there was a major dispute at MGM internally over the making of this film, and it was whittled down from Huston’s 120 minutes to just 69 (and released as 2nd film on a double-bill!) and the studio later claimed to have destroyed the expurged footage when Huston wanted the complete cut. This is what happens when capitalists have control of art…

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The Treasure of the Sierra Madre

John Huston, 1948, bw (8.6*)
A classic study of greed and morality, a tale which earned director Huston Oscars for directing and screenplay (and he directed his father Walter to another, the only one to direct a parent to an Oscar). Three men of dubious ethics get together out west and decide to go to Mexico to discover gold. Grizzled prospecter Walter Huston, who won a supporting actor Oscar, shows tinhorns Humphrey Bogart and Tim Holt both the ropes and what gold dust looks like. Three Oscars
Mexican actor Alphonso Bedoya delivers the greatest line in movie history:
Quote: Badges? Badges? We don got to show you no stinkin badges!

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The Man Who Would Be King

John Huston, 1975 (8.4*)
This grand adventure was based on a Rudyard Kipling story, which was based on the life of a soldier who left India for riches in Afghanistan before westerners had been there, in the mid 1800's. Two British soldier buddies, perfectly played by Sean Connery and Michael Caine, decide to seek gold by finding an unexplored country they can exploit, so they desert the army in India and head into the Himilayas on foot. Michael Caine's wife plays the romantic interest for Connery, who has the title role, the one would aspires to the crown. The entire story is related as a flashback to Kipling himself, played by Christopher Plummer.This is adventure like it used to be in the movies.

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The African Queen

John Huston, 1951 (7.6*)

AFI Top 100

Part adventure, part romance, this was a fun (but lightweight) jaunt through Africa on a steamboat run by drunkard Humphrey Bogart (his only Oscar® for acting), who rescues stranded and moralistic missionary Katherine Hepburn, who has better ideas for his steamboat: use it to blow up a German patrol boat on Lake Victoria.

This preposterous plot occurs during World War I. Apparently the whole cast and crew were struck with dysentary on location in Africa, but not Huston or Bogart, because, Hepburn claimed, "they were so loaded with alcohol that it killed all the bugs". 4 nominations, One Oscar®, Bogart's

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The Maltese Falcon

Dir: John Huston, 1941, bw (9.0*)

One of the great treasure hunts on film, a film noir mystery from the pen of Dashiell Hammett, a Sam Spade novel. Thankfully George Raft turned down the part, and it made Humphrey Bogart a star. The terrific Huston script has Bogart investigating his partner's murder and he runs into Sydney Greenstreet, who is hunting for a jeweled, golden falcon left behind by the Knights Templar in the middle ages. Peter Lorre is in on the plot, as is his client Mary Astor. The ever present Elisha Cook is Greenstreet's gun.

Quote: Oh, you're good, you're real good alright. (Bogart to Astor)

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