Occidente in fiamme

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

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.

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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.

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.

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.

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.