Did Ann Sheridan really appear in The Treasure of the Sierra Madre?
The Treasure of the Sierra Madre is a great movie.
Both Humphrey Bogart and Walter Houston turn
in stellar performances.
The Internert Movie Database (IMDB.com) rates it at 8.5 out of 10
and places it at number 70 on their list of the greatest movies of all time.
If you go to Ann Sheridan's profile on IMDB.com and sort her
movies by ratings, it's ranked as her number one movie.
In the IMDB.com casting credits for The Treasure of the
Sierra Madre, Ann Sheridan is listed as "Pretty woman
walking past barbershop (uncredited)"
But did Ann Sheridan actually appear in The Treasure of the
Sierra Madre?
Here is something to consider from Wikipedia:
"However, the most controversial cameo is the rumored one by Ann
Sheridan. Sheridan allegedly did a cameo as a
streetwalker.
After Dobbs leaves the barbershop in Tampico
(actually a set on a studio soundstage), he spies a passing prostitute who
returns his look. Seconds later, the woman is picked up again by the camera, but
this time in the distance.
Some filmgoers and critics feel the woman looks nothing like Sheridan,
but the DVD commentary for the film contains a statement that it is she.
A photograph included in the documentary accompanying the DVD release shows
Sheridan in streetwalker costume, with Bogart
and Huston on the set.
However, single frames of the film show a different woman in a different dress
and different hairstyle, raising the possibility that Sheridan
filmed the sequence but that it was reshot with another woman for indeterminate
reasons. Many film-history sources credit Sheridan for
the part."
I watched the DVD and found the woman in question to look nothing like
Ann Sheridan.
Here are three print screens I took from the DVD for your perusal:
Doesn't really look like Ann does it?
Yet in Ann's interview with Ray Hagen
from Killer Tomatoes: Fifteen Tough Film Dames, Ann
says this:
Oh that--my Crusades black wig! And what was that delightful
thing--oh, Treasure of the Sierra Madre. I had a
good black wig in that. I played a hooker.
Ray Hagen: You did?
Ann Sheridan: I walked down the street in a big fat
disguise to see if Bogart would recognize me.
There's a shot where he comes out of a bar -- I guess he had the
toothpick, he always did, and the hat turned up -- and he passes me and
then turns and looks back. And you see a girl twitching down the
street in a black satin dress. That's me. A bit. John
Huston whipped that one up. Now where were we?
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
In my
interview with Ray Hagen I asked Ray about the "Annie/The Treasure
of the Sierra Madre question." Here is what he said:
Ray:
- the girl, the Mexican girl who
approaches Bogart is obviously not Ann.
But pay attention to the cutting.
First she approaches and Bogart glances at her.
And then there's a cut and you see her walking away.
It was the walking away shot, you just see her from the back.
That was Annie wearing that girl's wig and costume
Ray:
It was
a joke. No billing or
anything like that. And I
thought "oh my gosh, a scoop!" because I'd never read that before. Since
the magazine was published I've seen it in a lot of her bios, in a lot
of things written about her.
Not a huge amount, but it's been repeated in a lot of different places.
Nothing had ever been said about that before. A lot of quotes
from that interview have been lifted verbatim in lot of different books,
and sometimes I'm credited and sometimes I'm not, but that's the way it
goes. It always happens.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Afterwards I took another look at the scene to try to determine if there
was any way Ann could have been cut into the brief
streetwalker scene. From looking at it again, I confirmed what I
had suspected all along -- there was no way Ann Sheridan
was in that scene.
I followed up with Ray yesterday wanting to come to a definite conclusion one way or the other.
As it tu
"Know what? You could be totally right about Annie & Sierra
Madre. She only said she did the shot as a joke to surprise
Bogie. What she didn't say, and what I didn't ask, was whether that's
the shot they used in the final edit. Scenes were shot and re-shot
all the time in those days."
Which is precisely what I think happened. Ann
shot the scene, but unfortunately, for whatever reason, it wasn't used
in the final cut of the film.
So I think I can say with almost 100% certainty that...
Ann Sheridan did not appear in The Treasure
of the Sierre Madre.
Return from Ann Sheridan
/ Treasure of the Sierra Madre to Ann Sheridan Information Menu