Gold of the Seven Saints (1961)

Director:

Gordon Douglas

Writers:

Leigh Brackett
Steve Frazee (novel)
(more)

Release Date:

18 February 1961 (USA)

Genre:

Adventure | Western

Tagline:

Poets And Dreamers... Brave Men And Bullet-In-The-Back Men Came After It... But First There Was A Secret To Unravel... The Mystery Of A Thousand Years!

Plot:

Fur-trapper Shawn Garrett gets out of a horse-stealing charge in a small, frontier town by agreeing to buy the horse with a gold nugget...

Plot Keywords:

Gold | Desert | Thirst | Washing Back | Waterhole

Cast

Clint Walker	...	Jim Rainbolt
Roger Moore	...	Shaun Garrett
Letícia Román	...	Tita, Gondora's 'Ward'
Robert Middleton	...	Amos Gondora
Chill Wills	...	Doc Wilson Gates, MD
Gene Evans	...	McCracken
Roberto Contreras	...	Armenderez, Gondora Gunman
Jack Williams	...	Ames (as Jack C Williams)
Arthur Stewart	...	Ricca (as Art Stewart)
rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Nestor Paiva	...	McCracken Henchman
Christopher Dark	...	Frank (uncredited)
Lalo Rios	...	Mexican Robber (uncredited)
Vito Scotti	...	Gondara's Cook (uncredited)

Directed by
Gordon Douglas

Writing credits (in alphabetical order)
Leigh Brackett
Steve Frazee		novel
Leonard Freeman

Produced by
Leonard Freeman	....	producer

Original Music by
Howard Jackson

Cinematography by
Joseph F. Biroc

Film Editing by
Folmar Blangsted

Art Direction by
Stanley Fleischer

Set Decoration by
Fay Babcock		(as Fay C. Babcock)

Makeup Department
Gordon Bau	....	makeup supervisor
Jean Burt Reilly	....	supervising hair stylist

Second Unit Director or Assistant Director
William Kissell	....	assistant director

Sound Department
Francis E. Stahl	....	sound

Stunts
Bob Terhune	....	stunts (uncredited)
Jack Williams	....	stunts (uncredited)

Other crew
Emory Horger	....	dialogue supervisor

Production Companies

• Warner Bros. Pictures

Distributors

• Warner Bros. Pictures (1961) (USA) (theatrical)
• Warner Bros. (1961) (West Germany) (theatrical)
• Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS) (1975) (USA) (TV)
• Warner Home Video (2009) (USA) (DVD) (DVD-R)

Also Known As:

Runtime:

88 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono (RCA Sound Recording)

Certification:

West Germany:12 (f) | Finland:K-16 | Sweden:15 | USA:Unrated

Filming Locations:

Arches National Park, Moab, Utah, USA

Company:

Warner Bros. Pictures

Trivia:

The film's company was based in Moab, Utah during the shooting - much of which took place inside nearby Arches National Park.

Quotes:

Doc Wilson Gates, MD:You're kinda fond of that young feller, ain't ya?
Jim Rainbolt:Sort of used to him after three years. He's got a knack for getting us into trouble and his mouth is too big for his size sometimes, but there ain't nobody I'd rather have backing me.

The eminently likable Clint Walker stars

Clint Walker probably does not jump to anyone's mind anymore when thinking about B-Western stars, but he is worth remembering. Although a mammoth of a man, his characters tend to be genial and soft-spoken - imagine an appealing combination of Paul Bunyan and Henry Fonda. Too bad he didn't make more Westerns than he did.

In "Gold of the Seven Saints", Walker and his partner Roger Moore are on the run, trying to escape basically everyone else, because the partners are carrying a large amount of gold that everyone wants a piece of. Walker never loses his cool when things go wrong, as they often do here. In a beautiful, and perhaps deliberate, contrast to the potential explosive violence contained in his titanic frame, Walker reacts to the wrong turns fate throws at him with a laconic acceptance that is pleasingly understated. His innately kindly and gentle personality always shines through. A very likable hero indeed.

I am not sure Roger Moore was the best pick for this Western. His accent keeps changing, especially early in the film, until at some point he is definitively identified as Irish. And he definitely comes in a distant second in the battle of the chests: Walker's massive upper body dominates the screen, and Moore's hairless average looking torso contrasts poorly.

The dialogue mostly avoids becoming to clichéd, and the action avoids unnecessary subplots, focusing relentlessly on Walker and Moore's striving to attain apparently unattainable safety and peace of mind. The camera-work is in spectacular black and white, with almost the whole movie shot outdoors in the desert, where majestic mesas and scrub brush dominate the landscape.

One interesting moment occurs when Chill Wills, having just induced the delivery of a baby by blowing snuff up the mother's nose, says something along the lines of "it is amazing what wonderful things you can do with snuff!" Fans of Terry Gilliam will recognize an eerie similarity between this line and the one Gilliam's Baron Munchaussen delivers, "I have found that a modicum of snuff can be most efficacious!"

Overall, this is a fine and satisfying way to spend an hour and a half in the West.