John Huston documentaries." Huston did an uncredited rewrite of Anthony Veiller's screenplay for "The Stranger" (1946), a film he was to have directed. When Huston became unavailable Orson Welles was offered the opportunity to direct. He had been cast in the role of a high-ranking Nazi fugitive who manages to settle in New England under an assumed name. His next picture, which he wrote, directed, and briefly appeared in as an American, asked to "help out a fellow American, down on his luck", was "The Treasure of the Sierra Madre" (1948). It would become one of the films which established his reputation
John Huston next script was "High Sierra" (1941), to be directed by Raoul Walsh. The film became the hit Huston wanted. It also made Humphrey Bogart a star with his first major role, as a gunman on the run. Warners kept their end of the bargain, and gave Huston his choice of subject. For his first directing assignment, Huston chose Dashiell Hammett's detective thriller, "The Maltese Falcon", a film which failed at the box office in two earlier versions by Warners. However, studio head Jack L. Warner approved of Huston's treatment of Hammett's 1930 novel, as he stood by his word to