The Way to the Gold

Jeffrey Hunter, one of those young guys who is always in trouble and never guilty of anything, drifts into a small town after sharing a cell at the pen with a notorious train robber. His head has been filled with THE WAY TO THE GOLD. Will he find it and get out of town with the cute diner waitress before Barry Sullivan puts him in jail for loitering or something?

Let's note, before panning this film, the one good and interesting thing in it. This flick has the daffiest set of geriatric villains you will see in a 50s film, as well as the mandatory brooding 50s psychopath. Walter Brennan makes the most of a small role depicting a cackling wacko, who has driven himself mad with greed, and his colleagues in crime are almost as good. The problem is, while these loons are worthy of Von Stroheim (or maybe Lillian Hellman), nothing else is even close, and bland as supermarket brand vanilla. Hero Hunter, in a Perry Como- like performance of an edgy and dangerous fellow, has nice boy dreams, but a bad attitude, and a lust of gold that wise tough cop Barry Sullivan just knows is going to cause some action. The tough but good girl isn't bad, but her role is underwritten. The required ironies and twists aren't bad, but the closing one is immediately predictable to anyone who has a passing familiarity with movies about a gang of folks seeking money they really shouldn't have.

In other words, this film is too cautious to go very badly wrong, and too cautious to be terribly engaging. Which suggests its current obscurity is well-earned.

This movie has a compelling atmosphere which starts in the first scene of revelation in prison and continues to the very end. There is an undercurrent of excitement created I think by our own longing for riches. We're cheering for the little man to make good in the end. As it turns out, he is finally redeemed in an unusual manner. The strength of this film lies in its strong supporting cast of 'villains', particularly Walter Brennan as the crazy uncle and Ruth Donnelly as the mother only a crook could love. Cinemascope photography is another big plus. There is great use of the widescreen to add tension to group scenes. A snapshot of rural America in the 1950's and perhaps a lingering remnant of the noir genre.

Before leaving prison Jeffrey Hunter is told where a huge cache of buried gold, loot from a robbery that the old man who was Hunter's cell-mate stole and hid before he was caught. Hunter gets out with memorized directions on The Way To The Gold.

This is a neat though low budget story of Hunter's quest for instant riches. His problem is that as it turns out when he gets to town he boards with a family named Williams whose relatives have a branch that we see over in Deliverance. There's Mama Ruth Donnelly, her fine scholarly cosmopolitan sons Jacques Aubuchon and Neville Brand and crazy old Uncle Walter Brennan. Donnelly's husband and Brennan's brother was in on the job, but he was killed and they've spent close to thirty years looking for the loot.

Hunter's only friend is hash house slinging waitress Sheree North who also boards with the inbreds. And there's a very shrewd sheriff played by Barry Sullivan who's just watching and waiting to see how things break.

The Way To The Gold is a really good film despite what I think was a miscast Jeffrey Hunter. Hunter was too white bread for the part of an ex-con. Paul Newman or Steve McQueen would have feasted on this part.

And you'll love the genteel family Williams.