The Treasure of the Sierra Madre is an American dramatic adventurous neo-western written and directed by John Huston. It is a feature film adaptation of B. Traven's 1927 novel of the same name, about two financially desperate Americans, Fred C. Dobbs and Bob Curtin, who in the 1920s join initially reluctant old-timer Howard (Walter Huston, the director's father) in Mexico to prospect for gold. The Treasure of the Sierra Madre was one of the first Hollywood films to be filmed on location outside the United States (in the state of Durango and street scenes in Tampico, Mexico), although many scenes were filmed back in the studio and elsewhere in the US. The film is quite faithful to the source novel. In 1990, the film was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".