Gold Is Where You Find It (1938) User Reviews

If you ignore the sappy narration at the start and finish, it's a much better film.

[planktonrules · 6/10 · 27 September 2009]

I rarely say this, but this film would have been much, much better if the very quickly spoken narration at the beginning of the film was removed or done better. In fact, the first time I tried to watch this film, I turned it off due to the horrid introduction. Likewise, the ending narration and its amazing sappiness would also be best if it were removed altogether. These sickeningly preachy bookends to the movie really take what is a decent film and sink it.

The film itself is actually based on real events. It seems that in the 1870s and 80s, hydraulic mining was literally blowing hilltops off in order to extract gold. Using high pressure hoses, the ground was washed away--often flooding the farms in the valleys with sediment or water. For more about this, do a Google search--I found it all moderately interesting. The famous Edwards Woodruff v. North Bloomfield Mining and Gravel Company case decided the legality of a company basically destroying the surrounding area to extract gold or other precious metals.

The first thing that you'll probably notice about the film, other than the horrible opening narration, is the garish color. The print shown on Turner Classic Movies is usually the best available, so I assume no pristine prints survive. Instead, the colors are very gaudy and rather gross. See the film and you'll know what I mean. Despite being made by Warner Brothers, who also made amazingly beautiful color films during this era (such as THE ADVENTURES OF ROBIN HOOD and THE SEA HAWK), this Technicolor just looks yecchy--probably due to the ravages of time. It could use a restoration to sharpen the picture as well.

The film is made up of two camps--the farmers (represented by Claude Rains and his friends) and the miners (represented by the likes of Sidney Toler). Rains' side is obviously in the right--the miners are creating an environmental disaster area and have no regard for the financial damages they are causing the farmers. However, nice guy George Brent still works for the mine, as he runs one of the three mines in the area. How he is able to justify the mine owners' actions AND try to be friends with Rains and his family (including his practically perfect daughter who any man in the film or audience would adore, Olivia de Havilland) is sure tricky. However, over time, the mine owners' tactics get worse and ultimately it's all heading for a big showdown--either in the courts, in all-out war or both.

The film has a really nice cast--with lots of fine actors. In addition to Rains, Toler, Brent and de Havilland, there is a long list of character actors who make the film worth seeing. George Hayes (in an appearance just before he became known in the credits as "Gabby"), Tim Holt, Henry Davenport, Barton MacLane, Henry O'Neill, Willie Best (in a role that does not cast him as an idiot, thank goodness) and Russell Simpson (among others) may not be household names, but for old movie nuts like myself, they are familiar friends.

Overall, the film is educational and entertaining--but also a bit predictable and formulaic. But, if you can somehow ignore the start and finish, you may find like I did that the film IS worth seeing.

Doesn't have enough of the golden touch

[TheLittleSongbird · 5/10 · 23 August 2020]

Despite the rather banal and slightly over-cute title for the film, 'Gold is Where You Find It' had more than enough to make me want to watch it. Max Steiner composed some timeless scores and was one of the great film composers at that time. Michael Curtiz directed many good to classic films, two being among my favourite films of all time. And the cast is a fine one, although George Brent was somewhat inconsistent Claude Rains in particular made every film he was in better.

'Gold is Where You Find It' is worth a one-time watch, but it is not one of those watch it over and over sort of films in my view. It is neither awful, with enough good things to raise it above that, or particularly good, with too many significant flaws. While most people come off well here in 'Gold is Where You Find It', it is perhaps safe to say that all have done a lot better in their careers. That's certainly the case with Curtiz, as far as his films go this is a lesser effort of his.

There are good things. On the most part, 'Gold is Where You Find It' is well made visually, the settings are sumptuous and in no way look cheap. Much of the Technicolor has a lavish look, even if this aspect isn't perfectly executed. Steiner's music score is typically lush and sweeping without being too melodramatic. There are charming moments.

Brent gives it his best shot in a colourless role, can understand actually why some found him bland in the film but it is not easy making a character this thin interesting and Brent at least doesn't look bored. The rest of the cast are better though, with the ever great Rains stealing every scene he's in and with Olivia DeHavilland looking beautiful and having a charming presence. The supporting cast are good all round.

Not all the Technicolor is completely attractive on the other hand, some of it can veer on being too garish. The script is on the stilted and routine side, and while the story has moments of charm the pace generally could have done with more urgency, the conflict with more tension and edge and the sentiment not been as strong.

Moreover, the characters while well performed are quite sketchy in development, namely Brent's. Do agree with those that have criticised the narration, far too saccharine, doesn't really move the story along all that much and was not really needed at all.

In conclusion, left me a bit mixed. 5/10

An almost-great film

[vincentlynch-moonoi · 7/10 · 5 August 2012]

The problem you're probably going to experience with this film is the poor condition it's in. And it's a bit surprising that it hasn't been restored. In 1937, producer Hal Wallis selected this film to be shot in Technicolor, as a dry run for upcoming "The Adventures of Robin Hood". It was the first Western shot in Technicolor, and only the second movie to be shot in new Technicolor. And the cast is decent -- Olivia deHavilland, George Brent, and Claude Rains.

Perhaps the issue is that is the same old story in many Westerns, except this time instead of being cattlemen versus sheep herders, it's farmers versus gold miners. Otherwise, it's fairly predictable and relatively historically accurate. It is interesting, particularly because you can learn a lot about the kind of surface mining which was quite prevalent in California in the early days -- hydraulic mining, which really scarred the environment.

This was clearly a big-budget picture, and it made a quarter-million dollars at the box office. So again, why not a restoration? Perhaps it is because over the years, George Brent's star has fallen quite a bit.

George Brent, although without his mustache, is very good here. As is Olivia deHavilland. Claude Rains' hair makes him almost unrecognizable, but he's always good.

And there are a rash of recognizable character actors in support of the main cast. John Litel, Barton MacLane (very little screen time), Tim Holt (not very impressive here), Sidney Toler (I ask again, what did the studios see in this "actor"?), Henry O'Neill, Willie Best (very short screen time; irrelevant to the film), Russell Simpson (a small role but strong performance), Harry Davenport (an all too short appearance for this classic character actor), Clarence Kolb, Moroni Olsen (as senator and father of William Randolph Hearst), and with a short screen time -- Gabby Hayes! The story is good, production values mostly appeared to be high, and since it takes place in California, much was shot on location, and the Great Valley and Sierra Nevada Mountains are there to see. This was a near-great film that somehow didn't quite live up to its potential. I'm glad to have seen it; it's well worth watching; but it won't end up on my DVD shelf.

A Film With Faults, Just Like California, But Golden Still

[gmginsfo · 7/10 · 21 April 2012]

Most of the prior reviewers have done a good job of noting the problems with this film but, in the terms relative to Hollywood, historical accuracy is not one of them. Hydraulic mining WAS environmentally catastrophic, but for the farmers and ranchers who lived downstream it was also economically so, a point not emphasized by many modern environmentalists with a narrow focus. The value of this film is that it graphically and realistically tells that side of the story, too, in human and economic terms. Fellow lawyers will laugh at the jump in the appellate process from the USDC for the Eastern District of California to the California Supreme Ct., (the case was actually litigated in the USDC for the Northern District of CA, in San Francisco), but the message comes through: hydraulic mining WAS a grave nuisance and it was effectively ended, at least in CA and much of the US, by the decisions that issued from the lawsuits involved, even if subsequent legislation allowed it to reappear, with some constraints on its worst effects, in the final decade of the XIX century.

I never even knew of this movie until I watched it on TCM this morning - and I'm glad I did! It's apparently unavailable on DVD, which is a shame, and it would benefit from a thorough restoration, but I don't fault the direction or performances as much as some others do. In fact, that's one of the interesting and appealing things about this film: it tentativeness. You get the feeling that the director and actors are exploring the script as much as Warners was still exploring the Technicolor process involved in its making. That meshes well with the scenes of San Francisco during the 1880s, in all its pre-quake and proto-profligate heyday, where the mindless joi de vivre flows as fast as the champagne to set the mood for the disaster later to come.

There's a lot of history on several levels in this movie: the reference to former Confederates emigrating to CA after the Civil War, a slightly off-color racial joke that some might find offensive, and some others I won't spoil for cinematic spelunkers. But, don't sell this movie short: watch it, enjoy it, and hope for its restoration so its several qualities can shine through its more gravelly parts.

A word in support of George

[vernc1 · 28 May 2014]

A number of reviewers fault the casting of George Brent in this film. In defense of Warner Brothers, at the time that this film was cast Flynn wasn't quite Flynn yet, and George Brent was a reliable first lead in costume dramas. It's true that I see more sparks between Mickey and Minnie Mouse than between George and Olivia in this film, but the casting must have seemed a good idea at the time. Recall that Warners seriously considered George for the lead in Captain Blood.

The film is entertaining to old timers for the casting of so many old reliable and familiar faces. I wish Willie Best had had a chance to play a serious role just once.

George Hayes was obviously transitioning to his Gabby persona, previously he had specialized in villainy.

Gold vs. Golden Fields of Grain

[weezeralfalfa · 7/10 · 6 August 2008]

One of the serious potential environmental costs of most mining operations is pollution of downstream streams, rivers and lakes with excess sediments and toxins. One of the most serious examples in 19th century USA of excess river sedimentation was caused by hydraulic mining of gold-bearing gravely hills on the sides of the Sacramento Valley in the period from the 1850s to the early 1880s. This process involved directing a high pressure jet of water onto the hillside, causing the material to wash downhill, where the gold could be separated from the gravel and sediment. The sediment then collected in a ditch or stream and most found its way to the Sacramento River or its tributaries. The sediment that stayed in the river bed increased the likelihood of floods in the downstream agricultural fields and towns and created permanent marshes in some areas. Some of the sediment spilled over onto the agricultural fields, where it might cover a standing crop or cover more desirable soil or make plowing difficult. Thus, the conflicting interests of the companies that used hydraulic mining and of the downstream farmers adversely affected by these operations is the subject of this nearly forgotten 1938 color film by Warner. 2018 REVISION: When I initially saw this movie, about 10 years ago, I was put off by the rather poor quality of this early 3-strip Technicolor. Several other reviewers also mentioned this. In contrast, when I recently rewatched this on TCM, the color was just as vibrant as that of "The Adventures of Robin Hood" released later the same year! Thus, I assume it has undergone some enhancement process, or a better copy was found. It's actually quite a good and unorthodox western, for the most part, although the first half is a bit talky. Claude Rains is very good as the leader of the victimized farmers. Olivia de Haviland is as sweet as in her next film, with Errol Flynn, although she doesn't have a lot to do, other than drool over George Brent, the cast hero. He has affinities with both the farmers and miners, thus would seem to be in the best position to try to settle their differences. He played a pivotal role in diffusing the war-apparent between a large bunch of farmers and miners. However, realistically, his solution was draconian: Using dynamite, he blew up the log dam above the mining camp, destroying the camp and drowning some miners, including straw boss Barton MacLane, as well as some farmers. Not considered is the probability that the resulting flood swamped some farms downstream. I just wonder how that segment was staged? Several reviewers complain about Brent's blandness for his role. pining for Errol Flynn. Yes, Flynn would have made a more colorful hero, but Brent was adequate........ Finally, there is the matter of the inane title. Surely, Warner could have come up with a catchy or more appropriate title. "Gold or Grain" is short and to the point. Incidentally, I understand there is still plenty of gold in 'them thar hills', waiting to be extracted by means other than hydraulic mining.

California is where you find it

[guswhovian · 7/10 · 25 August 2020]

Jared Whitney (George Brent) is the manager of a hydraulic gold mine in 1880 California, but his position is complicated when he falls in love with Serena Ferris (Olivia De Havilland), the daughter of landowner Colonel Ferris Nclaude Rains), who is opposed to the mine.

Gold Is Where You Find It is only notable because it's and early Technicolor film and it's the only film I've seen where George Brent got top billing! Brent acquits himself well in the lead, but one thinks Errol Flynn may have been better suited to the part.

The Technicolor scenery is lovely, as is Olivia De Havilland. Claude Rains and Margaret Lindsay are wasted in supporting roles, while Michael Curtiz directs very well. Barton MacLane gets a good part as the treacherous mine foreman, and there's a spectacular flood sequence at the finale.

Coming in at a brisk 94 minutes, it's looks as though big chunks were cut out of the film, as Marcia Ralston is prominently billed in the cast but is seen very little in the film. Overall, good fun.

One of Warner Bros. first Technicolor films, it's definitely worth a look

[jacobs-greenwood · 7/10 · 19 December 2016]

Directed by Michael Curtiz, with a screenplay by Warren Duff and Robert Buckner, this historical drama Western was one of Warner Bros.'s first Technicolor films. Not only does it cover a subject I had not seen previously discussed, the harmful practice of using hoses to wash away entire hillsides to find gold, but it's delightful to see so many known actors in color for the very first time. It also offers a change of pace from the cattlemen vs. the farmers stories! I'm not sure why this epic isn't as well known as some other, later films like Duel in the Sun (1946) and How the West Was Won (1962), but it's certainly worth a look for anyone who hasn't seen it. There is quite a bit of narration at the beginning (and some at the end) which setup the "story of California" and explains the film's title.

George Brent plays an engineer from the east who has come to California to help his employers mine gold from the hills. He's tough enough to hold his own against the gruff mine foreman Slag Martin (Barton MacLane). Unfortunately, because of the way the gold is mined, the water used and the resulting mud from the process run down into the valley, destroying the wheat crops of those who had previously cleared and tamed the land there. Chris Ferris (Claude Rains) owns one such plantation and is perhaps the wealthiest man around. Willie Best is inserted in some scenes, obviously cast as one of the farm workers. His almost 17 year old daughter Serena (the lovely Olivia de Havilland) has begun growing fruit trees on "her" 50 acres. His older son Lance (Tim Holt) doesn't like working in the fields and instead wants to find a quicker way to riches. Enter Jared Whitney (Brent) who, because he's tolerated by their gentleman father, becomes Lance's best friend, actually saves him (his life) in a barroom fight, and Serena's "boyfriend"; Jared teaches her irrigation!

Later, Chris will regret the growing relationship between her daughter and Jared, and he works to stop it. Chris's brother Ralph (John Litel) sees the writing on the wall and decides to sell his land to Chris. His wife Rosanne's (Margaret Lindsay) father happens to be the man that owns the San Francisco-based mining firm that employs Whitney, Harrison McCooey (Sidney Toler). Later, Lance goes to San Francisco himself to make his fortune. One of the most (techni-)colorful scenes in the film is a tracking shot down a long bar filled with multicolored drinks. When Jared has an idea to improve production, he travels to San Francisco where Rosanne tells her friend Molly (Marcia Ralston) "hands off" the attractive newcomer. Later, Serena travels to San Francisco where she and Jared pick up where they left off, much to the chagrin of the married Rosanne.

When one of the wheat farmer's (Russell Simpson) home collapses because of a mudslide, killing his wife & child, the farmers gather together to discuss taking matters into their own hands and marching on the mines. Chris is able to calm the crowd, at least temporarily, saying that they should trust him, the lawyers they've hired, and the courts who are sure to decide that what the miners are doing much be stopped. Sure enough, despite the miners' lawyer (Robert McWade), the judge order an injunction to stop the miners' activities until the California Supreme Court can review the issue. Jared, who had expressed his concerns about what his employers were doing, is fired and replaced with Slag Martin, who issues rifles to his men and orders them to barricade the mine to keep the injunction from being issued. Lance volunteers to deliver the injunction, but is killed by Slag's men in the process. Jared carries Lance's body back to the Ferris home where Chris is told that Jared had tried to stop the shooting. Despite Doc Parsons's (Harry Davenport) efforts, Lance dies; this prompts Chris's call to arms.

Just before the farmers, many veterans of the Civil War, advance on the mine, Jared pleads to Chris that there is another way. He convinces them to wait so that he can sneak into the mine, steal some dynamite, and blow up the dam he'd convinced his former bosses to build to improve efficiency. Slag sees what he's doing and tries to stop him. Even though Jared is wounded, he succeeds in destroying the dam causing a massive flood (that somehow doesn't destroy all the farmland below). Slag is killed in the process; Jared rescues Chris. In the CA Supreme Court, the judge (Henry O'Neill) delivers the verdict the miners don't want to hear - that their actions must cease because they're harming the farmers. Jared and Serena are shown together as the narrator explains that fruit exports will now become the gold of California.

George 'Gabby' Hayes, Clarence Kolb, and Moroni Olsen also appear (the latter two as Senators) as does Charles Halton, uncredited, as one of Jared's employees (an accountant, I think).

gold is where you find it

[mossgrymk · 5/10 · 26 January 2023]

I generally agree with the majority of my fellow IMDBers that in their understandable zeal to tell a late Depression era, populist story where the villain is Big Mining (as personified by Barton MacLane and Sidney Toler) scenarists Robert Buckner and Warren Duff forgot to make their characters interesting. The result is fairly long stretches of boredom involving a really dull love story between George Brent and Olivia DeHavilland and a tepid father/son conflict between Claude Raines and eternal spoiled brat Tim Holt. The movie does come alive at certain points. Michael Curtiz is too good an action director for it not to. I love the denouement with the evil hydraulic miners drowning in their own watery muck. Truly an ending that would have pleased Frank Norris. But in general this is pretty much low grade schlock. And can we please lose the gratuitous racism, please? Solid C.

It really needed Errol Flynn

[dougandwin · 5/10 · 16 November 2007]

First of all , one has to wonder why Warner Bros.who were already on a winner with the Flynn/de Havilland pairing (e.g. Captain Blood and The Charge of the Light Brigade), chose to cast the very colorless George Brent as the hero, as he falls way short of being effective. The intro speech was pathetic, the story has been done many times, the color was poor, and if it were not for Claude Rains and Miss de Havilland it would have been almost unwatchable. But in all fairness I must say there were some very good supporting cast members, like Harry Davenport, Margaret Lindsay, the always "villain" Barton MacLane and Warner perennial player John Litel, plus others , all of whom had very little to work with. Errol Flynn was badly neede here.

A Scientific Western

[Ron Oliver · 10/10 · 5 January 2002]

A mining engineer, caught between a mighty gold syndicate and a group of stubborn ranchers, learns that GOLD IS WHERE YOU FIND IT when he meets the beautiful daughter of a powerful landowner.

Warner Brothers had great hopes for this lavish Western, and the money that was spent certainly shows up on the screen. Unfortunately, the romantic attraction between stars George Brent & Olivia de Havilland never catches fire. This is largely the fault of the script, which seems strangely aloof from their involvement and makes their love scenes rather pedestrian. Alas, real life can be much the same way...

In this case it is important to look at what strengths the film possesses. Chief among these is master actor Claude Rains, in a suave performance as Olivia's determined, courageous father. With his rich, silken voice, he could have simply read the script directly into the camera and made it compelling. Always a treat to watch & listen to, the movie is fortunate to have him.

Good support is given by young Tim Holt as Rains' amiable, tragic son; Harry Davenport as a friendly old doctor; Gabby Hayes & Willie Best as employees of Rains; and Sidney Toler & Barton MacLane as the murderous syndicate president and mine foreman.

The Technicolor photography - still rare & wonderful in 1938 - is pleasant on the eyes. The massed attack on the mine is well handled & exciting.

****************************************

Viewers of the film are likely to hear more about hydraulic gold mining than they ever knew before. Indeed, the environmental problems which the film depicts, with the immense runoff fouling the downstream waters & farmlands, are quite accurately depicted.

The Golden Moon Mine in the movie could have easily been based, in part, on the great Cherokee Mine in Northern California's Butte County. Located at the base of Table Mountain, between the towns of Chico & Oroville, the Cherokee Mine attracted Argonauts from around the world (as its cemetery still attests) and became the largest hydraulic mining enterprise on earth. Nearby Butte Creek was dammed to provide a 300 acre supply of water for the Mine (three smaller reservoirs were also created). Over 100 miles of conveyance were constructed to move the water to the Mine, where each day forty million gallons were needed for the eighteen immense monitors which directed their gush at the side of the Mountain. Sluices nine miles in length were ready to catch the particles of gold washed down from the bluff. In its few years of operation - 1880 until 1887 - two and a half million dollars worth of gold was found, as well as small amounts of platinum, topaz and even diamonds. Eventually the gold played out and the Mine was no longer cost effective to remain open. To this day, the scars still remain on the side of Table Mountain as mute witness to one of the engineering marvels of the 19th Century.

a lesser film by curtiz

[ksf-2 · 5/10 · 16 September 2020]

A stellar cast - George Brent, Olivia deHavilland, Claude Rains. Sydney Toler. it's now the 1870s. better gold mining processes. so much water. now the farmers are getting flooded out. and they sue the mining companies. apparently based on a real court case Woodruff v. North Bloomfield Gravel Mining, according to the trivia section! Jared (Brent) meets the Ferris family... Rains is the old fashioned dad, deHavilland and Holt are brother and sister. everyone is going into large scale, hydraulic gold mining, but pop Ferris is determined to farm wheat the old way. and to fight miners the legal way. In the courts. and to make things worse, daughter Serena has fallen in love with one of those cursed miners. keep an eye out for Harry Davenport as Doc Parsons. he was the kindly old doctor or grandfather in so many films. story just simmers and bubbles. never really reaches a boil. Directed by Michael Curtiz. won the oscar for casablanca four years later. he made SO many great films. this one filmed WAAAY north of sacramento. it's average.

Dwelt Some Miners, Not Fortyniners

[bkoganbing · 8/10 · 24 September 2009]

Although she might admit to it now, but not back in her salad days, one of the reasons that Olivia DeHavilland's films are so well remembered from her days at Warner Brothers was the sheer expense of them. She did do her share of sound stage shooting, but as often as not Warner Brothers would cast her as the heroine in their expensive period costume dramas. She certainly did them well, though she wanted better parts. Even films like Anthony Adverse and Gone With The Wind added to her reputation. But these films and Captain Blood, Dodge City, The Private Lives Of Elizabeth And Essex and The Adventures Of Robin Hood are what we remember of her early period and one of the reasons she's better known than a lot of her contemporaries today.

One that was less known and I suspect because she did not have Errol Flynn as her leading man is Gold Is Where You Find It. This is a western feud story set in 1879 in California thirty years after the Gold Rush. It's not hard rock Fortyniners panning for gold out of the stream any more. Huge mining concerns are using hydraulics to create mudslides that are ruining the crops of landowners large and small. The biggest of these is Claude Rains whose grain crops like everyone else's is threatened by the mine owned by Sidney Toler whose foreman is Barton MacLane.

Into the lives of all of them comes mining engineer George Brent from the east and he makes an impression on all, on MacLane's skull and on the lives of Rains's children Olivia DeHavilland and Tim Holt. He gets caught right in the middle of the feud coming to a boil. Do we doubt where he's going to end up?

Michael Curtiz directed Gold Is Where You Find It with the usual Curtiz supply of action. There's a climax involving a battle between the miners and the farmers that's exciting and well done. The costumes and sets reflect a good eye for the period. In fact Curtiz probably decided all this needed was Errol Flynn and he got him next year for Dodge City.

Though she hated making the costume epics, these films have survived and part of the reason they have survived is Olivia DeHavilland is so darn good in them. Sadly this film is not out so one has to wait until TCM broadcasts it. It's worth the wait.

Memorable actors and actresses of 1930s in a lavish costume film

[christiansturges · 10/10 · 28 May 2014]

Here's an opportunity to sit back and enjoy all those studio actors and actresses of the 1930s in a color film with lavish costumes and sets.

It's not often that one gets to see Claude Raines, Margaret Lindsay, George Brent, Gabby Hayes, a very young Tim Holt, Clarence Kolb, et al in color! For 1938 "Gold Is Where You Find It" is a memorable production. It's unfortunate that more productions of the 1930s were not in color so one could see and appreciate these old-time actors and actresses up close and in the flesh.

Who cares if the plot is a familiar story of feuding miners and farmers. Sit back and watch Olivia and George up close and in color.

Early technicolor western...de Havilland's first color film...

[Doylenf · 14 October 2001]

Not much distinction to this routine western, aside from the fact that it introduced Olivia de Havilland to the screen for the first time in technicolor. Unfortunately, neither her role nor the film itself are ever able to rise above the routine dimensions of a weak script. George Brent stars as the miner in conflict with de Havilland's rancher father Claude Rains.

It takes place in the 1870s and has a narration at the beginning and end that tells us this was meant to be an important little "epic" for the Warner studio. Despite some solid scenes of mining operations and an agreeable enough cast that includes Tim Holt (as de Havilland's brother), Margaret Lindsay and Sidney Toler (before his Charlie Chan days), the story itself is a weakness guaranteed to produce yawns long before the rambling tale reaches an action-filled finish. But by then, you're not likely to be paying too much attention.

Of all of the early ingenue roles de Havilland had at Warner Bros., this is definitely one of her weakest. It seems that when she wasn't playing opposite Flynn, she had no real leading man. Charisma between her and Brent is sorely lacking.

"What do these men want?! Money and more money . . . "

[oscaralbert · 8/10 · 3 July 2020]

" . . . and they don't care how they get it!" screams Serena in summing up the Corrupt Corporate Communist Capitalist U.S. "business" system 1:06:02 into GOLD IS WHERE YOU FIND IT. Under America's "One Dollar, One Vote" policy, the callous greedy One Per Center Fat Cats have the unlimited leeway (documented here by unleashing flood waters which drown women and children in the false "security" of their own homes!) to slaughter We True Blue Loyal Patriotic Union Label Working Stiff 99 Per Center Citizens (such as Lance here), warn the always eponymous Warner Bros. The only way to fight these Evil Gold Bug Hoarders and their mercenary henchmen is with military assault rifles, suggest the prophetic prognosticators of Warner.

No gold in these hills

[jaykay-10 · 27 July 2000]

You've seen this picture before - with a different title and a different cast. It's the one about two warring factions (here, miners and wheat growers) battling over precious land while she (Olivia deHavilland, daughter of the most prominent wheat grower) and he (George Brent, employed by the mining syndicate) fall in love. All very conventional, despite a solid cast and first-rate production values.

Clumsy off-screen narration at both the beginning and end attempts to give this story a documentary feel and some measure of historical significance. Did the film makers tack this on because they felt the story lacked significance and originality? I did.

Gold, Is Not What This Film is

[yarborough · 25 June 2003]

This is the kind of film that makes you wonder why would anyone want to put money into making this "who cares" kind of film. I don't give a damn about the story or characters, or problems they faced in fighting for their land in this rather fictional film. There's not one onuce of exciement in this film, except the rather expensive and well structured sets that were put into. Boring script, cardboard characters,(except,Claude Raines) and (especially, George Brent) and poor story, makes this a rather boring film to watch. Where's Errol when you need him. He would of fit nicely in the role of George Brent's character. But then again think about it, he doesn't these kind of movies. It's a good thing the rather talented and beautful Olivia de Havilland made The Adventures of Robin Hood in the same exact year this movie came out. With the release of Robin Hood, people all but forgotten about this one. The technicolor for this film is rather poor and looks very faded. Watch Robin Hood of the same year and you will see just how different and glorious the color of that film is, compared to this ill- faded film. *1/2 out of ****