Das Gold der sieben Berge

This presumably standard little western has a touch more to it than one might expect. For one thing, it has the unusual pairing of towering western figure Walker and lean British actor Moore (sporting a grating Irish brogue.) Additionally, despite continual references to "pretty girls" and a showy role for lifted and separated Italian actress Roman, the movie is rife with homoerotic images and subtext! Walker and Moore play fur-trappers who have recently acquired 125 lbs of gold. Once word gets out that they're packing it across the desert, villains come out from under every rock to steal it. The pair have a sort of Batman and Robin dynamic with Moore (referred to as "kid" by Walker even though they are only months apart in age) trying hard to be a good partner, but inevitably running into trouble. Walker, as the wiser and stronger hero, must come to his rescue. Walker's first appearance in the film presents him as a monument that nearly dwarfs the surrounding Utah scenery. His beefy body is regularly placed in various Greco-Roman positions. He sprawls out under a rock for a nap while Moore lays his head at his feet looking upward. Later, in a scene with Wills (as a questionable doctor who's come to get in on the gold), Walker wields a phallic gun between his legs. He tells Wills that there is no one besides Moore who he'd rather "have my back." When the trio lands at Middleton's hacienda, Walker (in the film's highlight) takes a bath in a huge barrel and is scrubbed down by Roman as Moore looks on longingly (supposedly due to butt-swinging Roman, but the audience knows better!) A publicity shot for the film actually shows Moore spooning in this tub with Walker snugly behind him! This (probably staged just for fun) shot isn't in the movie. If it had been, the flick would have outgrossed "The Guns of Navarone" that year! A later shot of an ostensibly nude Walker asleep on his bunk has him lit like an archangel taking a nap. By now, Walker has crossed the line into the gay cowboy fantasy stratosphere! By the time Moore is stripped to the waist and tied to a rock (in another Batman-esque move...one can almost hear an announcer ominously asking what will happen to our Boy Wonder) waiting for Walker to come and rescue him, Walker comes upon three skinny-dipping varmints, and then is asked to get on his belly with his granite behind on display, the film has taken on a whole new aspect. Moore (who should never be allowed to sing on film again) ekes out the final ditty (something to the effect of "if marriage is in store, I'm outta here") as the duo rides off together contentedly. The one major drawback to the film is its lack of color. The striking scenery and Walker's polar blue eyes deserved to be shot in vivid Technicolor. This was director Douglas' third time at bat with Walker, so he knew the value of Walker's treasure chest. Did Walker realize his own appeal and understand the way he was being presented? His gentle, "aw shucks" personality in interviews would suggest not. Thank God, however, that he exists on celluloid for later generations to appreciate.

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.

This movie is about two partners who encounter trouble as the try to take their gold to town to cash it in. They endure several hardships and their friendship is tested several times. I enjoyed the chemistry between Clint Walker and Roger Moore. Both actors showed their versatility in moving from light situations to more serious situations;their charisma made the movie. The plot was unlikely,an Irish cowboy traps furs with a westerner,they find gold,the Irish cowboy goes into town to steal two horses to carry the sacks of gold,he gets caught,is forced to buy one horse with a gold nugget and a chase is on.

Openly do I admit my ignorance about Director Gordon Douglas' career. Even worse, I prejudged that a person with such common names would find it hard to have his talent recognized, but since then I have found in Wikepedia that Douglas directed a minor sci-fi master work like THEM!, and a handful of other above average flicks.

Clint Walker and R Moore make an interesting duo. Playing a man older and more aware of multafrious frontier perils, Walker wisely reserves judgement, whereas Moore acts as his fancy propels him, often underestimating the enemy while talking like Simon Templar (Moore was then in the early stages of the famous British TV series, THE SAINT, strangely appropriate that he should be carrying gold... of THE SEVEN SAINTS!)

Good photography,

Western knock-off of "Treasure of the Sierra Madre" is entertaining if not as brilliant as it's source material. Clint Walker and Robert more find 125 pounds of gold nuggets and are on the run across the desert from various factions also wanting the gold. Walker is serviceable as the lead (I always thought he'd be perfectly cast as The Punisher), but it's a young Roger Moore (even before his breakthrough role as Simon Templar in "The Saint") who really brings life to the picture as a wily Irishman. It's nothing brilliant that you haven't seen before in any number of other western, but it's all done well and was never boring. Co-written by the great Leigh Brackett, who's worked on everything from "The Big Sleep" to "Rio Bravo" to "The Empire Strikes Back."