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Tuesday, May 28, 2024

LUST FOR GOLD (1949)

No doubt all the prestige on THE TREASURE OF THE SIERRA MADRE/’48 prodded Columbia’s Harry Cohn to greenlight his own Gold Fever project.  Too bad his was Fool’s Gold.  The film holds a modest rep as something of a ‘find,’ strong cast/unusual bifurcated structure, but it’s a dog any way you slice it.  And here it’s sliced by bookending a five-reel flashback with thirty-minutes of contemporary action.  Both stories involving a hunt for $20 mill in gold, all bagged up and ready to go, but hidden in rough mountain terrain.  If the falling rocks don’t kill you, another treasure hunter just might.  All laid out in the wrap-around contemporary story as William Prince, Grandson of the original prospector, starts his own dangerous hunt between his motor-mouth voice-over exposition of times past.  A generation ago, when mean-as-a-coon-dog Glenn Ford shoots his partner after they find the elusive gold, only to have Ida Lupino and husband Gig Young come on the scene.  Ida plays easy to get, but only has eyes on the golden prize.  It’s ludicrous stuff, poorly played/poorly staged, with Glenn casually tipping ten-ton boulders onto adversaries with one hand, and an earthquake to settle all scores.  Now, back to our modern story which largely replays themes from the past before a double climax to end the hunt and tie up loose ends with action that anticipates NORTH BY NORTHWEST/’59 and MACKENNA'S GOLD/’69.  (How'd they do that?)  Perhaps director S. Sylvan Simon was responsible.  A final film before dying at 41 two years later, he’d largely been a comedy specialist, mostly for Red Skelton.  Speaking of Fool’s Gold!

WATCH THIS, NOT THAT/LINK:  *Ford’s at his very best playing a bad guy for Delmer Daves in 3:10 TO YUMA.  The 1957 original, not the 2007 remake with Christian Bale and Russell Crowe.  https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2008/09/310-to-yuma-2007.html

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