"The Treasure of Sierra Madre": B. Traven, John Huston and Ideology in Film Adaptation

Recent scholarly studies of both Marut and Traven suggest that this man-whatever his name or names at various times-was influenced by the radical intellectual anarchist tradition of nineteenth and early twentieth century Germany. In The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, as in a number of his other novels and stories, the Americans Traven chooses for his central characters are down-and-outers, men on the fringes of modern capitalist society who are radically alone: friendless, penniless, without family, virtually without identity. A close inspection of his many screenplay adaptations of novels including The Maltese Falcon, The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, The Asphalt Jungle, The Red Badge of Courage, The African Queen, Moby Dick, and several later works-especially The Man Who Would Be King, based on a Kipling short story-proves that he habitually lifted much of his dialogue from the fiction being adapted.