Dobbs promises that anything they dig up will be split three ways, but Howard doesn't believe them. As the gold is mined the men become increasingly distrustful, and soon turn against one other.
This wasn't exactly a box office hit, despite Bogart's popularity, but over the years the film has become a classic of it's genre as, unlike many other Western movies, it's not so much a cowboy movie but more of a film that looks at how money and greed can effect a flawed man's character.
4. Unforgiven
Unforgiven saw Clint Eastwood direct as well as star back in 1992 and the movie went on to revitalise a fading genre.
Eastwood and Morgan Freeman play retired, down-on-their-luck outlaws who pick up their guns one last time to collect a bounty offered by the vengeful prostitutes of the remote Wyoming town of Big Whiskey.
Disgusted by the punishment of losing several ponies dealt out by Sheriff "Little Bill" Daggett to a cowboy who had slashed the face of a prostitute Big Whiskey prostitutes, led by fierce Strawberry Alice (Frances Fisher), take justice into their own hands and put a 1000 bounty on the lives of the perpetrators.
Gunslinger the Schofield Kid (Jaimz Woolvett)turns to notorious outlaw William Munny (Eastwood) to go and collect the bounty, but Munny left that life behind for the sake of his late wife.
But Munny's financial struggle forces him to re-think and the pair convince clean-living friend Ned Logan (Morgan Freeman) to go along with them.
But Sheriff little Bill has no intention of letting the outlaws disrupt the law of his town and Munny must contend with his new moral code in the face of revisiting the life he left behind.
Today Unforgiven is still considered one of the greatest film's in it's genre, ironically produced years after the Western's hayday of the fifties and sixties.
5. 3.10 To Yuma (2007)
A rancher struggles to support his ranch and family during a long drought. Desperately needing money to build a well, he takes an assignment to transport a notorious felon, in the hands of authorities, to Yuma for imprisonment.
But, once the two meet, the criminal tries to tempt him with--in exchange for allowing him to escape--an offer of much more money than the rancher ever expected, the result of a hidden loot.
Russell Crowe and CHristian Bale are arguably the best of their generation, deliver they are driving force and main asset to this movie.
The duel like nature between the two men, who come from different walks of like a murderous Wade and the moral upstanding Evans, is cleverly kept intact throughout the duration of the film keeping the focus on them, how they react to what is happening and more importantly how they are reacting to each other.
And their scenes together, in particular at Contention station, are box office gold.
True Grit is released 11th February.
FemaleFirst Helen Earnshaw
Tagged in True Grit