Warner Bros. Strike It Rich

Radio Record, Volume XII, Issue 36, 17 February 1939, Page 14

Warner Bros. Strike It Rich

["Gold Is Where You, Find It." Warner Bros. Directed by Michael Curtiz. Starring George Brent, Olivia De Havilland, Claude Rains. WelNington: February 17.} OLD, according to the old motto and the Warner Bros. film of that name, is where you find it. Warners seem likely to find it, in the form of bobs at the box-office, with 2 successful combination of Technicolor, villainy, romance, outdoor spectacle and Olivia de Havilland. "Gold is Where you Find It" is the story (probably quite authentic, but that doesn’t matter much), ef conflict between the wheat farmers of California in the 1870’s and the hydraulic gold-miners who ruined their crops by washing whole mountain-sides over the fields. Using oil instead of gold as the treme, a somewhat similar story was told in "High, Wide and Handsome," but the cost of this new picture was possibly higher, its appeal is wider, and it is certainly more handsome. Above And Below "HE producer has adopted the rather unusual course (unusual for a film producer, that is) of setting the stage and telling one exactly what is going to happen before the story opens, with episodic scenes from California’s gold-mining history which illustrate the gathering threat to the farmers. After that, the story becomes a trifie static while the producer busies himself with the box-office requirements of romance, as represented by Olivia de Havilland and George Brent, instead of with the underlying theme

of conflict between filthy lucre under the soil and the golden grain that waves above it, However, this comparatively slack period in the action doesn’t last long-just long enough for George Brent (a mining engineer with the rugged American name of Jared Whitney), to get aequainted with 17-year-old Serena Ferris (Miss De Havilland)-and then things start moving properly, with the farmers muttering in their beards as the overflow from the sluices sweeps down the once fertile valleys, and with the gold speculators in San Francisco urging the miners up in the hills ta greater and greater efforts between pulls at the champagne bottle. Family Troubles LEADER of the farmers is Colonel Ferris (colourfully played with the -right touch of overemphasis, by Claude Rains).;: He

hates the very insides of miners, but being a fine old Southern gentleman, he doesn’t do much abont it-except in a perfectly legal way --until his daughter falls in love with Engineer Jared Whitney, his brother (John. Litel), sells his

wheat property and deserts to the enemy, and his son (Tim Holt) is shot while trying to serve the miners with a _ perfectly legal Supreme Court injunction to cease operations. And then, hellzapoppin’ un in them thar Technicolor hills. The Big Flood HE farmers go out en raasse and with guns; the miners build barricades; and it looks as if one half of the cast will shoot the other half untit George Brent de cides to drown them instead. Anything, I suppose, is preferable to bloodshed; and it must be conceded that, in the interests of exciting entertainment, drowning makes a far more picturesque death that shooting. So George Brent blows up a dam, which releases the big scene of the picture and several thousand cubic feet of water, sweeping down the valley in a superbly spectacular yellow flood.

One scene later, the survivorsand there are plenty of themgather in court to be told by the judge that the wealth which grows out of the earth is worth more to mankind than the gold which lies under it, This is. a finding with which we can heartily agree, having often enjoyed strawberries and cream, but never yet having had the chance to sample a gold bar. Vivid And Vigorous "GOLD is Where You Find It" is excellent entertainment, and the kind which I think the movies should make more of. It has vigour and vividness, pictur :sdue character-acting (especially by Claude Rains), spectacular sweep and pictorial beauty, and some happy touches of symbolism in shots of golden grain, rosy apples -and mud. ’ My only real complaint is that it is hard to catch some of the dialogue when the characters are muttering into their beards, but, fortunately, the more important ones are clean-shaven,