I just got through watching John Huston’s 1948 adventure film, The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, starring Humphrey Bogart and currently sitting at #120 on IMDb’s Top 250 Movies list. A cursory search for commentary on the film turned up the original 1948 review in the N.Y. Times, which ends with a strange sentence.
To the honor of Mr. Huston’s integrity, it should be finally remarked that women have small place in this picture, which is just one more reason why it is good.
Indeed, women barely factor into the 2 hour runtime of the film. Every speaking role is male. The tale is certainly steeped in masculinity, manifesting as naked ambition, paranoia, and a deft commentary on the soul-warping power of greed. Perhaps the reviewer simply thought that the fairer sex were simply too good to be an integral component of a story so bleak, rugged and philosophical. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Joel Manahan 