Haunted Gold

An early Wayne western. Very entertaining and just plain fun! Wayne plays John Mason. He receives a letter prompting him to return and claim his half of a gold mine called the "Sally Anne". When Wayne returns he finds a girl … imagine that! She by chance had also received a letter.

He then finds himself taking on some bandits in a haunted mine with a crazy catacomb of tunnels, under a ghost town, complete with creepy shadows, trap doors, secret passages & even organ music. As stated above it's just a fun who-dun-it. A weird kind of mix of mystery meets western. To the best of my recollection this had never been done prior to this movie ... and even if it had it was still a bit refreshing for me.

Haunted Gold is perhaps the closest John Wayne ever got to making a horror picture. It comes complete with secret passages, a ghostly figure, a graveyard, and a creepy butler.

There's great spooky atmosphere in the early scenes but the scary stuff is soon abandoned in favor of a more conventional tale featuring bandits and the theft of a gold mine.

The photography and sets are exquisite and the action scenes are top-notch, even if the script is typical. Fans of John Wayne and nineteen-thirties B-westerns will find it interesting if not entirely spectacular.

However, Haunted Gold is tainted a bit by the racial stereotypes represented by Wayne's annoying sidekick Clarence, played by Blue Washington. The modern viewer might get a little embarrassed while watching it.

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.

The basic story is different owners and quasi owners of an abandoned gold mine were invited 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 of the other characters, that is because he had six moves in 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.

This western reminds me of an "old house film".....a ghost town with a "real" ghost! Secret panels, shadows on the walls, eyes peering thru slits in the walls, etc.

It also gives Blue Washington the chance for some great "scared reaction" comedy (ala' Mantan Moreland or Willie Best).

I don't much care for westerns, but the "supernatural" elements in this film make it worth watching!

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. The "western" part of the story is just so-so.