The Treasure of the Sierra Madre

Warner Bros. bought the rights to B. Traven's 1935 novel in 1941 as a vehicle for John Huston, then shelved the project when he went to the Army Signal Corps. Warner Bros. held the project for him at the insistence of producer Henry Blanke, who stalled other writers until Huston returned. Jack Warner greenlit the proposed ten-week location shoot without having read the script; he assumed the picture was another modestly budgeted Western programmer, and had the unit return to Hollywood when the budget started to exceed three million dollars.