Lust for Gold

Combining adventure and noir in a Western setting, S. Sylvan Simon’s highly entertaining Lust for Gold is packed not only with action and intrigue, but with two compelling stories to keep viewers glued to the screen. First, Barry Storm (William Prince) invites himself to accompany Floyd Buckley (Hayden Rorke) into the Superstition Mountains where Buckley claims to have found the Lost Dutchman goldmine, which had been discovered sixty years earlier by Storm’s grandfather, Jacob Walz; on the way to the mine, however, Buckley’s shot dead by a mysterious sniper, becoming the latest in a series of prospector murders, so Storm sets off to investigate. This contemporary story frames the extended flashback at the heart of the film, a narration of the legend of Jacob Walz (Glenn Ford) who first discovered the lost mine and suffered the consequences of greed all around him. Ida Lupino plays the conniving, duplicitous Julia, the unloving wife of Pete Thomas (Gig Young) who uses her considerable charms to play Jacob and Pete off each other so that she can find the gold for herself. The fatalism and nihilism of noir are present throughout, but what’s most memorable here is the nonstop action that constantly stretches credibility: Apache ambushes, bar brawls, public meltdowns, rattlesnake attacks, cliff boxing, and even an epic earthquake! This film is fun.