Gold Fever (1982)
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| German title | Gold fever |
| Original title | Mother Lode |
| Country of production | United States |
| original language | English |
| Publishing year | 1982 |
| length | 101 minutes |
| Age rating | FSK 12/16 |
| Rod | |
| Director | Charlton Heston |
| script |
Fraser Clarke Heston Andrew Scheinman Martin Shafer |
| production | Fraser Clarke Heston, Martin Shafer |
| music | Kenneth Wannberg |
| camera | Richard Leiterman |
| cut | Eric Boyd-Perkins |
| occupation | |
| |
Goldfieber (Original Title: Mother Lode ) is an American adventure film from 1982. Directed by Charlton Heston , the script was written by Fraser Clarke Heston , Andrew Scheinman and Martin Shafer . The search for a missing prospector turns into a crime thriller about false identities, greed and murder.
action
When George Patterson disappears after a flight into the wilderness of northern British Columbia to do geological surveys and search for gold, his fiancée, Andrea Spalding, contacts the pilot and family friend, Jean Dupre. She asks him for help and together they set off on a somewhat dilapidated seaplane in search of the missing person. On the flight, the engine of the old machine suddenly cuts out and Jean has to make an emergency landing. You will meet the local fisherman Elijah, who immediately admires the aircraft, as he used to fly this model himself. In no time he found the fault. He advises them to stay away from the headwaters of the river. Too many prospectors have not come back from up there.
Andrea and Jean continue their flight confused, but when they arrive at their planned destination they see no signs of George or his plane. Nevertheless, Jean prepares to land, which, however, fails and the plane overturns on the surface of the water. With luck, but completely soaked, they escape to the shore. As they are drying their clothes by a campfire, they suddenly hear bagpipe music . You follow the sounds through the forest and meet the hermit Silas McGee, who is apparently happy to have visitors and is also a treasure hunter. He allegedly bought the mining rights for a silver mine from an Indian. He shows this to his visitors, who have to climb deep into a shaft. Andrea is getting increasingly uncomfortable in McGee's company and she is glad when she can finally return to her camp with Jean. The next day Jean also wants to try his luck looking for gold. To do this, he dives deep into the river because he suspects that this is where the water would most likely wash the precious metal out of the mountain. In fact, he finds a rather large nugget and suspects that McGee's mine must also contain gold, not just silver. When he investigates, Jean discovers a second mine and he realizes that McGee is not telling them the truth. But Andrea doesn't really care and finally urges Jean to move on to look for George. So he shows her the plane wreck which he discovered during his dive in the river and which the hermit must also know something about. Andrea confronts him, but does not receive a satisfactory answer. When she is looking for Jean, who is now obsessed with the search for gold and is again looking for clues about the precious metal in McGee Mine, he blows up the entrance. Jean can escape to freedom through an air shaft and assumes that Andrea has been buried and is dead. In his anger, he kills Silas McGee and climbs into his second mine the next day, as he now sees no more meaning in his life other than gold mining. He climbs so far into the tunnel that he comes out at the end of McGee Hut and, to his great surprise, finds him alive. Now Jean learns that he killed McGee's mentally retarded twin brother, who the hermit always claimed to have died fifteen years ago. He would also have killed George when he showed up here a month ago and started looking for gold in their turf. Jean realizes that McGee has been eaten away by his greed for gold and thinks he is about to find the long-sought main vein. He wants to convince Jean to continue searching with him, but Jean refuses and meets Andrea in the forest. She reports that McGee's twin brother saved her shortly before the tunnel collapsed.
After Jean and Andrea do everything possible to get away from this place as quickly as possible, McGee is determined to kill them both so that they cannot betray his gold mine. Only with great effort they can defeat McGee, who is hit by a bullet and falls into his mine shaft.
Jean and Andrea set off on foot and meet Elijha again, who takes them down the river in his boat. When he asks Jean whether he has found something that was worth the effort, Jean looks at Andrea for a long time and answers: "Yes". He gives Elijha the nugget he found in the river and returns home with Andrea.
Reviews
Film-Dienst wrote that the adventure film was "exciting, if not entirely plausible". He offers "some horror elements and wonderful nature shots".
Cinema magazine said the film was "very much in the tradition of Jack London's adventure stories ". Heston plays his dual role "with obvious pleasure". The editors' conclusion was: “Played too badly, told too well”.
background
The film was shot in British Columbia . It started in cinemas in the Federal Republic of Germany on April 15, 1983 while the premiere in the German Democratic Republic did not take place until December 9, 1988.
Web links
- Gold fever in the Internet Movie Database (English)
- Gold fever in rotten tomatoes (English)