Tonight's Movie: Lust for Gold (1949) at the Arthur Lyons Film Noir Festival

One of the recurring themes among the films at the just-concluded Arthur Lyons Film Noir Festival was unredeemable lead characters -- so bad they couldn't even be considered antiheroes. They are purely villains!

We saw that with Sonny Tufts in SWELL GUY (1946), James Cagney in KISS TOMORROW GOODBYE (1950), and Glenn Ford and Ida Lupino in LUST FOR GOLD (1949).

LUST FOR GOLD screened at the festival in a beautiful 35mm print. The 90-minute movie was engrossing and featured a remarkably deep cast, but wow, was it ever dark.

As with SWELL GUY, please note that this description is a bit more "spoiler-ish" than usual. Those who care about such things should see the film before reading.

In modern-day Arizona Barry Storm (William Prince) is searching for the Lost Dutchman gold mine discovered by his grandfather Jacob Walz (Ford).

When another mine hunter, Buckley (Hayden Rorke), is gunned down, Barry spends time with the local sheriff (Paul Ford) and his deputies (Will Geer and Jay Silverheels). At the sheriff's station Barry hears tales of the gold mine's infamous history, launching several lengthy flashbacks.

In 1880s Arizona Barry's grandfather Jacob found a fabulous mine in the Superstition Mountains containing millions in gold. Jacob and his friend Wiser (Edgar Buchanan) gun down a couple of men who were at the mine first, and then Jacob in turn kills Wiser so that he won't have to share the gold.

Calculating Julia (Ida Lupino), who owns a small frontier town bakery, sees a good thing for her future and sets out to catch Jacob...and his money. Once she's hooked him into a marriage proposal she belatedly tells Jacob she's still married to Pete (Gig Young).

Jacob, having been married previously himself, isn't too disturbed and gives Julia $2000 to pay for a divorce so they can be married. (Side note, I assume Barry being Jacob's grandson is explained by his prior marriage.)

All bets are off, though, when Jacob overhears Julia tell Pete she's going to know the location of the mine soon. Jacob, Julia, and Pete all end up at the mine where Jacob pins Julia and Pete down with gunshots and refuses to give them water. Before long, all three are dead, thanks in part to a violent earthquake.

Back in the present day, the person who killed Buckley is now trying to bump off Barry...will he find his grandfather's mine?

The movie was fascinating chiefly because of its awful lead characters, with Ford playing an irredeemably evil villain. Jacob gunning down his older partner without a moment's hesitation was a real eye-opener of a scene.

Lupino isn't much better in terms of morality, though it's fun to watch her play the delicate lady, handkerchief fluttering, as she works to ensnare Jacob while entertaining him in her parlor. She's very prim and proper as she shares a photo album and plays the piano, but by movie's end this soft-spoken "flower" is literally stabbing Pete in the back!

It's not a great film, but it's entertaining and certainly holds the attention.

I especially enjoyed the faces which streamed by in quick succession. Those spotted in roles of varying sizes included Myrna Dell, Antonio Moreno, Kermit Maynard, John Doucette, Tom Tyler, Trevor Bardette, Arthur Space, Anne O'Neal, Maudie Prickett, Arthur Hunnicutt, Percy Helton, Karolyn Grimes, Billy Gray, Virginia Farmer, and Harry Cording.

It was especially fun to see Gray as his FATHER KNOWS BEST "sister," Elinor Donahue, just happened to have been in the house to watch the previous film, JOHNNY O'CLOCK (1947).

LUST FOR GOLD was directed by S. Sylvan Simon and the uncredited George Marshall. It was filmed in black and white by Archie Stout. The screenplay by Ted Sherdeman and Richard English was based on the 1945 book THUNDER GODS GOLD by Barry Storm.

LUST FOR GOLD is available on DVD in the 2021 Glenn Ford Western Triple Feature set from Mill Creek/Critics' Choice. The other films in the set are THE MAN FROM COLORADO (1948) and A TIME FOR KILLING (1967).

It also came out on a 2005 DVD from Sony.

For more on this film, please visit Colin's 2009 review at Riding the High Country. I like his point about Jacob's childlike behavior; as for Lupino, he writes "Her character has not one redeeming feature." True! She's a femme fatale for the ages, and she's perhaps the chief reason to see LUST FOR GOLD.

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