Lust for Gold

Barry Storm (William Prince) shows up in a small Arizona town, searching for the gold mine allegedly left behind by his grandfather (Glenn Ford).  He learns the tale of how the mine was discovered… and of the woman (Ida Lupino) who tried to swindle his grandfather out of it.  This is one of those “I can’t remember why the hell I wanted to see this” movies.  I suppose it was probably for Lupino.  I’m not a big fan of Glenn Ford or westerns (although I don’t write either one off) and I’d never heard of the director, S. Sylvan Simon.

There’s a fair amount of noir crossover in westerns of the 40’s and 50’s.  Often it’s just a matter of setting.  Move this story from Arizona to Los Angeles and change it from gold nuggets to, I dunno, a stash of diamonds or something, and this might easily be considered a noir, or at least on the borders.  Flashback structure, femme fatale, every character driven by greed and letting their basest instincts take over.  Lupino’s take on the fatale role is not as vicious as Ann Savage in Detour or similar juicy parts, but it is interesting how you never know which man she truly loves, if either of them.  The other characters, including Ford, are somewhat more forgettable.

It’s about 20 minutes before the flashback portion begins and there’s a lengthy coda, so that the meat of the film only takes up about 2/3rds of the running time.  The present-day sections are considerably less intriguing, bogged down by Prince’s horrible voiceover, but serve as a mildly apt parallel to the past story.  The cinematography and score are serviceable but unremarkable, and unfortunately the location shooting is offset by some rather cheap-looking sets.  But overall it’s a generally enjoyable flick, a nice diversion for fans of the western or the noir.  Rating: Good

IMDb