Classic Prospecting Movies

[parttime_miner]

Well, Its still cold and mining is not yet an option...
But, here is a list of all the classic gold prospecting movies that I can think of...

Great movies if you can't go out and get dirty!

The Treasure of the Sierra Madre -Humphrey Bogart
Pale Ridder - Clint Eastwood
The Far Country - James Stewart
Mackenna's Gold - Gregory Peck

Water Hole #3 - James Coburn (has gold, not a prospecting movie, but good all the same)

more on the way... brain went blank...

Anyone else got a few?

 

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[SouthernCelt]

How about "Lust for Gold"? Hollywood's version of the Lost Dutchman mine. Glenn Ford as the "Dutchman," made in 1949 I believe.

 

[SouthernCelt]

Along the thread of your post, I have a question for you or anyone out there that has anything to offer.

It's about an old B Western (or it may have been a serial from the late years before they stopped making serials).

The story involved a group of people hunting a old Spanish colonial gold/silver mine in the SW US. The consquistadors had served as guards for a slave crew of Indians forced to dig the ore but all was under the supervision of the Church (Catholic obviously). The Indians rebelled and defeated the slave drivers, put all the gold/silver not yet hauled off by the Church into the mine, then sealed it up with rocks. All this was told in flashback depiction with a voiceover by a character that wanted to mount a search for the mine. He believed he could find it because the Church had created a treasure map of sorts in the form of 4 or 5 icons (crucifixes) that had clues carved on or molded into them. The crucifixes were hidden in various spots and deciphering the first one led to the next and so on. The treasure seeker thought he had the first cross.

I don't remember the details of most of the search other that the fact that the group's solidarity fell apart and the hunt became a race between different disagreeing parties trying to see who would find the next clue.

I remember the character who figured out the final cross (the hero of course) discovered that the final cross wasn't an icon at all but the shadow cast by a man standing at sun rise on a specific date of the year in a natural stone arch formation. The "+" center on a cliff face west of the arch showed the location of the sealed mine entrance. (The same principle used by Indiana Jones to focus the rays of the sun on a specific tomb/shrine depicted in the Egyptian map room when he was trying to beat the Nazis to the Ark of the Covenant.)

I saw this back in the mid-50s and thought it was just the most exciting show I had ever seen. It caused me to have this life-long curiosity about secret codes and symbols (cryptography as practiced other than by the military) and lost treasure legends.

I've done a number of web searches in IMDb and a few other genre sites that post old movie info but haven't ever seen anything that really seemed to match.

Anybody have a clue?

 

[nebraskadad]

OK..

Lerner and Loewe - Paint your Wagon..

 

[MalteseFalcon]

Old thread, but I figured I would drag it up to comment...

I saw Treasure Of The Sierra Madre for the FIRST time while under the influence of some "mind-expanding substance" back in high school in the early 80s.

It was bizarre enough watching the old sourdough dancing around when they found gold.

What happened to the gold at the end sorta freaked me out.

*Spoiler Alert* (for anyone who has not seen this, perhaps you might want to skip the next paragraph):

What got me (in my hallucinatory state) at the time was that they had gone through so much...starvation, conspiracy, suspicion, murder, assault, being burned up by the sun, etc. and it wound up being all for nothing.

As the gold dust blew away, I stared in horror at the TV.

My friends who were with me spent the next half hour calming me down LOL!

What a way to watch a classic prospecting film? And who better to be in it than Humphrey?

Actually, he oughta be the patron saint of Treasure Hunters in the movies, as aside from that, of course he was in "The Maltese Falcon".

 

[EDDE]

The Mother Lode chuck heston

 

[buscadero]

Here's a few more. "Gold Is Where You Find It', The Gold Rush, & 2 Jack London favorites, White Fang, and Call Of The Wild. There have been a couple of TV movies, but I can't remember their names.

 

[Jeffro]

"Highbanking with Big John Holstrom" Heck of a nice guy, and he's been there, done that. Must be in his 80's by now, and wears his old garb at any opportunity.

Wish I had a nickel for every ounce of gold he's got in his life!

 

[goldinmypan]

W.C. FIELDS "The Fatal Glass of Beer" of as sometimes known "Ain't a fit night out for man or beast"

 

[Smithsgold]

Into the West

 

[Real de Tayopa Tropical Tramp]

Hi Maltese falcon, the one big flaw in that movie is that the gold they mined was coarse, and wouldn't have blown away, the majority could easily have been recovered. heheh

Tropical Tramp

 

[Jeffro]

Doggone it RT, ya spoiled it- LOL!

 

[ratled]

Maybe not the full movie but you have to like the opening scene of Support Your Local Sheriff and the discovery of the Frytag Memorial Mine. I think one or two the folks from here are recognizable in that scene too.

ratled

 

[winners58]

Amynales signature is spam...

 

[kcm]

These are movies I've collected over the years that have to do with the Gold Rush, prospecting, gold mines, etc. Most don't have any actual prospecting/mining in them, but merely take place surrounding such.

MacKenna's Gold (Gregory Peck, Omar Sharif) Apaches, townsfolk, a Mexican bandit and the cavalry follow a sheriff to a mythical canyon of gold.
The Painted Hills (Paul Kelly) A wealthy gold prospector is murdered by his greedy partner, and his dog (Lassie) sets out to avenge her master’s death.
Cariboo Trail (Randolph Scott, Gabby Hayes) Two Montana cattlemen go to British Columbia and find gold fever, Indians and trouble.
Bonanza: Lonely Man - Hop Sing goes on vacation and finds love while panning for gold.
Bonanza: The Saga of Annie O'Toole - Annie O'Toole (Ida Lupino) uses a filed claim to protect her gold mine.
Bonanza: Any Friend of Walter's - Hoss befriends an old prospector and his dog as he helps them fend off gold thieves.
Bonanza: Walter and the Outlaws - An old prospector asks Hoss to help him rescue his dog from gold thieves.
Bonanza: The Greedy Ones - Greedy gold hunters threaten to destroy the Ponderosa after a prospector claims to a found a sample there.
Bonanza: The Gold Detector - An inventor sells a machine to Hoss claiming it has the ability to detect gold.
Bonanza: Speak No Evil - Ben and Hoss mediate a custody battle among relatives of a teenager who inherited a gold mine.
Bonanza: The Gold Mine - A Mexican boy's former keeper uses Little Joe to learn from Ramon the location of a gold vein.
The Ballad of Lucy Whipple (Glenn Close, Wilford Brimley) A recent widow moves with her three children to the new frontier of California during the gold rush.
North to Alaska (John Wayne, Grainger Stewart) A prospector brings a French girl back from Seattle to his partner in Gold-Rush Alaska.
The Far Country (James Stewart, Walter Brennan) Two Wyoming cattlemen drive a herd to gold-rush Alaska and find trouble.
The Great Adventure (Jack Palance, Joan Collins) An orphan, his wild dog and a dance-hall queen thwart a Yukon bully in gold-rush Dawson City.
North Star (James Caan, Chrostopher Lambert) The owner of gold-rich land counters attacks by a greedy businessman in 1899 Alaska.
The War Wagon (John Wayne, Kirk Douglas) An ex-convict and his partner eye an armored stagecoach fitted with a Gatling gun and full of gold dust.
The Trail Beyond (John Wayne Noah Beery's Sr & Jr) A cowboy and an old friend search for a young woman and a gold mine.
Call of the Wild (1935, 1993, 1997, 2000) A Seattle prospector travels with a dog called Buck in the 1890’s gold rush.
Lust for Gold (Ida Lupino, Glenn Ford) A Dutch miner and an Old West couple die fighting over an Arizona gold mine lost in an earthquake.
Gold of the Seven Saints (Clint Walker, Roger Moore) Two trappers are chased through treacherous terrain by bad guys who want their gold.
Road to Utopia (Bob Hope, Bing Crosby) Two vaudeville flops pose as bad guys and join the Klondike gold rush with a saloon singer.
Trail of '98 (Dolores Del Rio, Ralph Forbes) Many people of various backgrounds join the gold rush.
The Badlanders (Alan Ladd, Ernest Borgnine) Two circa-1900 ex-convicts plan to rob a double-crosser’s gold mine with dynamite.
Paint your Wagon (Lee Marvin, Clint Eastwood) Prospectors share a wife and a scheme to collect gold dust lost in a California boomtown.
and last but certainly not least,
Mark Twain's: Roughing It (James Garner) A teenaged Mark Twain travels to the American West during the "Gold Rush" days in search of fortune and his destiny.

 

[kcm]

Amynales signature is spam...

I'm surprised you clicked on the link. I won't click on unknown links unless I know the person that is posting the link, or the URL location is known to me.

 

[Scratchy Nutsitch]

"Yellow Rock"

 

[Bonaro]

The Mother Lode chuck heston

Great movie but extremely hard to find

 

[russau]

Dan I got my copy of it on Ebay a long time ago. and now I cant find it!

 

[kcm]

The Mother Lode with Charlton Heston has been on YouTube for about 10 months now. Only has 338 views. Is 1:46:51, so is full movie.


Will have to try and get this on some trip to town. ...Like I don't have enough other things to download as well!