The below sequence from John Huston s The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (‘48) arrives near the end of Act Three. The banditos have murdered Humphrey Bogart‘s Fred C. Dobbs, and are now trying to sell his burros. Entirely spoken in Spanish, obviously, but shot and performed in such a way that dialogue is all but superfluous. A five-year-old could easily discern what’s happening.
Question: Was this the first time that a critical scene in an American big-studio film was performed entirely in a foreign tongue without subtitles or any form of English translation or explanation?
I bought and began reading Nat Segaloff’s “Bogart and Huston” book last night. Smart history, easy velvety prose, comprehensively researched, first-rate. The Beat The Devil chapter is a hoot.
