Customer Reviews

Haunted Gold

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This is a movie that the family will want to gather around the t.v., with popcorn in hand, to watch. From the title page with bats flying towards you, to the eyes mysteriously watching from behind pictures and clocks. John Wayne rides into the "ghost town" to claim his share of a closed gold mine, only to find villians and mysterious characters running around town. Of course there is a female he is sure to fall in love with. With the help of his workhand, Clarence and his horse, Duke, John Wayne rounds up the bad guys and gets the girl. The horse, Duke, does some really impressive stunts. This movie is great for anyone who loves a good movie, one you'll watch over and over.

I found myself bored with this as I do with all of Dukes earlier works. Fun to watch once but I never feel the need to repeat viewings. Haunted Gold is an average B western with the same substandard script and poor acting, but the action is very good. As for the earlier Duke films, if you're looking for quality westerns, I HIGHLY recommend the following: Helltown(Dukes best early performance), The Big Trail(Absolutley a grand spectacle in early filmmaking and the first widescreen movie)and Angel and the Badman(good script).

My family and I enjoyed this movie very much. It showed a lighter side to Wayne.

One of John Wayne's earliest starring vehicles, "Haunted Gold" (1932) is a lively genre-bending Western produced by Leon Schlesinger in a departure from his Warner Bros. cartoon output. Mixing "old dark house" chills with hard-riding thrills, the hour-long programmer utilizes stock footage from Ken Maynard's "The Phantom City" (1928). Politically incorrect to the extreme, but good fun as the Duke develops his screen persona. "B" Westerns rarely look this sharp in terms of video quality.

An early John Wayne western that only ran for an hour, this was surprisingly entertaining. Since he was a beginning actor and this was a Grade B-type of production, I didn't except it to be so entertaining, although now that I've watched a lot of early '30s films, I am not surprised. Movies in that era were pretty fast- moving ones.

What makes this fun is the combination of western action, a few spooky things and comedy. The latter is mostly supplied by Blue Washington who plays "Clarence Washington Brown," a Mantan Morleand-like character. Yeah, I know this kind of role is demeaning to blacks and it's almost embarrassing to watch nowadays, but Washington was funny. He is a big contributor in making the film fun. The "western" part of the story is just so-so.

Plenty of reviews have already mentioned the racial component to this film. I was somewhat surprised that Warners gave this film a DVD release because of it. However, they should be applauded for releasing the film without censoring or burying it, if only to reveal the film as a document of its time.

That said, HAUNTED GOLD is really a fascinating mixture of genres. If Charles Dickens had written a western it might have looked like this. Erville Alderson carries himself like Uriah Heep. The dark house, with its secret passages and secrets in general, looks a lot like the old house in Don Knott's THE GHOST AND MR. CHICKEN. Throw in an episode of Scooby Doo and you have a pretty good idea of HAUNTED GOLD.

The mix of genres--mystery, western, comedy--makes for an interesting novelty picture, if not an interesting western.

For a couple of dollars more, this film is also available as a Triple Feature DVD with RIDE HIM, COWBOY and THE BIG STAMPEDE. The Triple Feature DVD, though a double-sided disc with no extras, is certainly the better buy.

"Haunted Gold" gets a 3 star rating in my book because it is rather unique among the pre-"Stagecoach" John Wayne movies. Most of those early movies do well to warrent a 2 star rating and are worth watching solely because Wayne is generally always worth watching. When it comes to plots, however, they all tend to follow a predictable sequence; young woman's family encounters trouble from bad guys, John Wayne emerges to help, bad guys temporarily disgrace, discredit or disempower Wayne's character, young lady and family fall victim (often with the loss of grandfather, father, uncle, or older brother), Wayne returns to action and saves the day, the ranch, and the girl (for himself). All this usually takes about 55 minutes and involves a trusty horse (often Duke), a comical sidekick or two, and the evil nemisis.

In "Haunted Gold" you might say that all the elements are there but give the writer credit for adding a strong element of suspense (at least strong for B movie standards). A group of men are called to an abandoned mine in the Old West. There is a phantom lurking about, peeping through peep holes, and disappearing into nowhere. There is also Blue Washington, a Black actor in "Haunted Gold" whom I didn't recall from any other movies. However, I googled his name and the word actor. Besides being remind by numerous entries about Washington being a politically Blue state, I saw that Blue Washington appeared in a number of movies during the 20's and 30's (including bit parts in "King Kong" and GWTW). I mention this because I thought he was pretty good in his role. Unfortunately, it was difficult to see him in his role as a sort of underpaid Stepin Fetchit. Naturally, he gets scared more than any of the others and there's the scene where he gets covered with dirt and dust and turns "white". Otherwise, the mystery, the exciting fight scenes, the scret entrances and exits, all serve to make this early Wayne movie a cut above the others.

This movie is a lot better than I thought it would be. Really, since it's only an hour long, why not watch it? A word of warning, though: it's really dark, so I had to turn all the lights out just to see the picture decently enough.

This is a four star western which pits John Wayne and Sheila Terry against a group of "bad guys" over a gold mine which is supposed to be "haunted". The case and the movie were in excellent shape. I would order from this vendor again. Thanks RWM

I viewed this film for only one reason. It may not have been worth it. I wanted to see a film that contained the "Black Bird" used in "The Maltese Falcon" (1941).

Spooky town, sliding panels, mysterious tunnels, spooky eyes, and a phantom all have to be dealt with in this film. More still unrealistic characters, stilted dialog and a suggestion that the phantom had a watermelon accent.

Basic story is different owners and quasi owners of an abandoned gold mine were invites by cryptic letters promising it is worth the trip. One of the owners of the mine is a young John Wayne.

If you are wondering why Duke is a better actor than most the other characters, that is because he had six moves to his acting career and dialog aside has the most visual cliffhanger action. One of the most memorable scenes in this film is when Clarence (Blue Washington) is in a phantom suite and Duke is ready to kill. Clarence asks "Duke don't you recognize me and Duke shakes his head no. Clarence takes off the phantom hood and asks Duke again this time Duke shakes his head yes.

This has all the feel of a serial. And we are not sure it will wrap up.

Donovan's Reef