''Gold'' is a 1974 British
thriller film
Thriller film, also known as suspense film or suspense thriller, is a broad film genre that evokes excitement and suspense in the audience. The suspense element found in most films' plots is particularly exploited by the filmmaker in this genre ...
starring
Roger Moore and
Susannah York and directed by
Peter R. Hunt. It was based on the 1970 novel ''Gold Mine'' by
Wilbur Smith
Wilbur Addison Smith (9 January 1933 – 13 November 2021) was a Zambian-born British-South African novelist specialising in historical fiction about international involvement in Southern Africa across four centuries, seen from the viewpoints ...
. Moore plays Rodney "Rod" Slater, general manager of a
South Africa
South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the Southern Africa, southernmost country in Africa. It is bounded to the south by of coastline that stretch along the Atlantic Ocean, South Atlantic and Indian Oceans; to the ...
n
gold mine Gold Mine may refer to:
* Gold Mine (board game)
*Gold Mine (Long Beach), an arena
*"Gold Mine", a song by Joyner Lucas from the 2020 album ''ADHD
Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is a neurodevelopmental disorder characteri ...
, who is instructed by his boss Steyner (
Bradford Dillman
Bradford Dillman (April 14, 1930 – January 16, 2018) was an American actor and author.
Early life
Bradford Dillman was born on April 14, 1930, in San Francisco, the son of Dean Dillman, a stockbroker, and Josephine (née Moore). Bradford's pa ...
) to break through an underground
dike
Dyke (UK) or dike (US) may refer to:
General uses
* Dyke (slang), a slang word meaning "lesbian"
* Dike (geology), a subvertical sheet-like intrusion of magma or sediment
* Dike (mythology), ''Dikē'', the Greek goddess of moral justice
* Dikes ...
into what he is told is a rich seam of gold. Meanwhile, he falls in love with Steyner's wife Terry, played by York. In the United States, the film was released only as part of a double bill.
Plot
The film begins with a tunnel collapse at the world-famous (but fictitious) Sonderditch gold mine outside
Johannesburg
Johannesburg ( , , ; Zulu and xh, eGoli ), colloquially known as Jozi, Joburg, or "The City of Gold", is the largest city in South Africa, classified as a megacity, and is one of the 100 largest urban areas in the world. According to Dem ...
, establishing the courage of Slater and his chief miner, John Nkulu (known as "Big King"), and the bond of trust between them. This is contrasted with the contempt with which some other managers treat the native miners. Big King is awarded a gold helmet for his heroic efforts to save others.
It is soon revealed that the collapse was no accident, but a failed part of a plan by a London-based criminal syndicate, which includes the mine-owner's son-in-law and director-manager Manfred Steyner, to destroy the mine so that the syndicate members can profit from
share-dealing and raising the price of gold on world markets. This will be done by drilling through a deep underground greenstone wall or dike which is all that prevents an adjacent reservoir of water from flooding the mine.
The mine's general manager, an accomplice in the plot, was killed in the tunnel collapse. Steyner then interviews Slater, the underground manager, for the now vacant post of general manager, although the mine owner/chairman of the board Hurry Hirschfeld (
Ray Milland) has the next regular man in seniority in mind as a candidate. During his interview, Slater first meets Steyner's wife Terry at their luxurious mansion and is attracted to her, but she does not at first return his interest. However, Steyner arranges for them to meet again, in the hope that Terry will influence her grandfather, Hurry Hirschfeld, an old curmudgeon whom she lovingly calls "Poppsie", in Slater's favour. The plan works, with two consequences: Slater becomes general manager, and he and Terry start a love affair.
Slater, unaware of the criminal plan, agrees to carry out the drilling but is cautious enough to plant a safety charge that will block the tunnel in case of a water leak. Steyner soon finds out that Slater is having an affair with his wife, but allows it to continue because it will keep Slater away from the mine, so that the safety charge can be disabled without his knowledge. Meanwhile, syndicate head Farrell has a German member of the syndicate and his young family assassinated by bomb (in a Christmas gift box) after German stock-exchange difficulties hurt Sonderditch interests.
While Slater and Terry are holidaying together over a warm Christmas, the final breach is made in the dike and a wall of water roars into the mazes of tunnels and shafts. The mine begins to flood, trapping a thousand workers. Slater hears of the disaster on the radio news, and flies with Terry in her small private plane back to the mine, making a hair-raising emergency landing on the access road. Slater and Big King descend into the mine, amidst rising flood waters, to repair and reconnect the electrical line to the explosive safety charge that will seal the dike hole. They succeed, but only because Big King sacrifices his own life to detonate the charge, letting Slater fall injured into a rubber dinghy in the flooded tunnel and escape.
Meanwhile, Steyner is murdered by Marais, one of his accomplices, running him down with his Rolls-Royce limousine while they observe the mine rescue operations from a nearby towering rubble/slag hill after they hear radio reports of Slater's explosive charge sealing the dike and saving the mine, confirming that their plan has unraveled. Marais then goes over the steep hill's edge after hitting his boss, dying as the car crashes and explodes. This conveniently leaves Terry free to continue her relationship with Slater, as her grandfather tells him again as he is loaded into an ambulance – "Slater, you're a maniac!” - with a satisfied smile, and Terry tells Slater, "I love you", as the film ends.
Cast
*
Roger Moore ... Rodney "Rod" Slater
*
Susannah York ... Terry Steyner
*
Ray Milland ... Hurry Hirschfeld
*
Bradford Dillman
Bradford Dillman (April 14, 1930 – January 16, 2018) was an American actor and author.
Early life
Bradford Dillman was born on April 14, 1930, in San Francisco, the son of Dean Dillman, a stockbroker, and Josephine (née Moore). Bradford's pa ...
... Manfred Steyner
*
John Gielgud
Sir Arthur John Gielgud, (; 14 April 1904 – 21 May 2000) was an English actor and theatre director whose career spanned eight decades. With Ralph Richardson and Laurence Olivier, he was one of the trinity of actors who dominated the Brit ...
... Farrell – syndicate head
*
Tony Beckley
Derek Anthony Beckley (7 October 1927 – 19 April 1980) was an English actor. A graduate of the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, Beckley went on to carve out a career on film and television throughout the 1960s and 1970s, often playing villainou ...
... Stephen Marais
*
Simon Sabela ... 'Big King'
*
Bernard Horsfall ... Dave Kowalski
*Marc Smith ... Tex Kiernan
*
John Hussey ... Plummer
*
Bill Brewer ... Aristide
*
George Jackson ... Mine Doctor
*
Ken Hare ... Jackson
*
Ralph Loubser ... Mine Captain
*
Patsy Kensit
Patricia Jude Kensit (born 4 March 1968) is an English actress and was the lead singer of the pop band Eighth Wonder in the 1980s.
Beginning her career as a child actor, Kensit gained attention when she acted in a string of commercials for Bir ...
... Daughter of German syndicate member
Book
The movie is based on a 1970 novel by Wilbur Smith.
The story was based on a real-life flooding of a gold mine near Johannesburg in 1968.
Smith researched the book by working in a gold mine for a few weeks. "I was a sort of privileged member of the team, I could ask questions and not be told to shut up", he says.
The ''New York Times'' said "Mr Smith, an adventure writer disdainful of subtleties, blasts his way to a finale strewn with broken bodies and orange blossoms."
Development
Producer
Michael Klinger
Michael Klinger (born 4 July 1980) is an Australian former first-class cricketer, who held the record for the most runs scored in the Big Bash League when he retired in 2019.
Until the 2008–09 season, Klinger played for Victoria and for ...
bought the rights to it and ''
Shout at the Devil
''Shout at the Devil'' is the second studio album by American heavy metal band Mötley Crüe, released on September 26, 1983. It was the band's breakthrough album, establishing Mötley Crüe as one of the top selling heavy metal acts of the 198 ...
'' as his follow up to ''
Get Carter
''Get Carter'' is a 1971 British crime film
Crime films, in the broadest sense, is a film genre inspired by and analogous to the crime fiction literary genre. Films of this genre generally involve various aspects of crime and its detecti ...
''. "Actually they're both just as tough as ''Carter,”'' said Klinger of the projects. The South African government promised to co operate in filming at the mines.
The film Klinger most wanted to make was ''Shout at the Devil''. However, because it was a period film it needed a large budget. ''Gold'' was cheaper because it told a contemporary story and he ended up filming that instead.
Klinger tried to set up the film with
MGM
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios Inc., also known as Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Pictures and abbreviated as MGM, is an American film, television production, distribution and media company owned by Amazon through MGM Holdings, founded on April 17, 1924 a ...
, for whom he had made ''Get Carter''. The studio bought out Klinger's option for ''Gold Mine'' for £25,000, but insisted that Klinger hire an experienced writer, Stanley Price, to work on the script along with Wilbur Smith. MGM later withdrew from the project – they were pulling out of all production in Britain – and Klinger bought back rights to the novel and script.
[''British Culture and Society in the 1970s: The Lost Decade''](_blank)
edited by Laurel Forster, Sue Harper] The budget of over £1 million was raised mostly from South African businessmen.
Roger Moore was cast in the lead. It was his first film since making his debut as
James Bond
The ''James Bond'' series focuses on a fictional British Secret Service agent created in 1953 by writer Ian Fleming, who featured him in twelve novels and two short-story collections. Since Fleming's death in 1964, eight other authors have ...
in ''
Live and Let Die'' (1973).
[Roy Moseley, ''Roger Moore: A Biography'', 1985 p 211-213] He was paid $200,000 plus a percentage of the profits.
Producer Michael Klinger used a number of other people associated with James Bond films, including editor John Glen, production designer Syd Cain, titles designer
Maurice Binder
Maurice Binder (December 4, 1918 – April 9, 1991) was an American film title designer best known for his work on 16 James Bond films including the first, '' Dr. No'' (1962) and for Stanley Donen's films from 1958.
Early work
He was born in Ne ...
and director
Peter Hunt.
Tony Klinger, assistant to the producer, said he tried to get
Steven Spielberg to direct the movie after having been impressed by ''Duel''. However, Roger Moore vetoed the choice on the basis of Spielberg's youth. "Roger was, I think, a little insecure about his acting ability, and as a consequence was always protective of his image, like most movie stars that are less actor and more star. I guess that's why we got the message loud and clear that he turned down our first choice for the director for ''Gold''", he said.
Filming
The film was controversially filmed in South Africa under the
apartheid
Apartheid (, especially South African English: , ; , "aparthood") was a system of institutionalised racial segregation that existed in South Africa and South West Africa (now Namibia) from 1948 to the early 1990s. Apartheid was ...
regime, with scenes shot at two large mines,
Buffelfontein and
West Rand.
"We had to drop down two miles, which was horrendous,” said Moore. "It was great to start with, and I got tremendously enthusiastic about the mine, but after ten days down there it got very claustrophobic."
Some scenes were filmed at
Pinewood Studios in London.
The British film union, ACTT, put a
black ban on the movie because its members were forbidden to work in South Africa. The Union suggested the film be shot in a mine in Wales instead but the filmmakers refused, claiming Wales looked nothing like South Africa. Some members defied the ban.
Bradford Dillman later recalled "Susannah York, a militant liberal, used every publicity opportunity to deplore the conditions of the black miners, despite pleas from the producers to cool it."
The complexity of filming the final flood scenes resulted in the movie going over budget.
Klinger tried to sell the film to companies such as
British Lion,
Anglo-EMI
EMI Films was a British film studio and distributor. A subsidiary of the EMI conglomerate, the corporate name was not used throughout the entire period of EMI's involvement in the film industry, from 1969 to 1986, but the company's brief conne ...
, and Rank, but was rejected. He succeeded in selling the film to Hemdale.
Reception
The film was popular at the box office – it was one of the 19 most popular films at the British box office in 1974
– enabling Klinger to raise finance for ''Shout at the Devil''.
[
]
Critical
The ''Los Angeles Times'' said the film "is everything people have in mind when they talk about a movie movie. Its hero is heroic, its heroine is beautiful and kittenishly sexy, its villains are outrageously villainous, its characters crustily colorful. It has scope, scale, surprise. It has more punch than a 15 round fight and more corn than Kansas. It is a travelogue of South Africa and a fascinating audiovisual essay on gold mining."
Awards and nominations
References
External links
*
*
''Gold Mine''
at Wilbur Smith Books
Review of film
at ''New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...
''
Review of film
at ''Variety''
{{Wilbur Smith
1974 films
Allied Artists films
British thriller films
British disaster films
1970s English-language films
Films scored by Elmer Bernstein
Films based on South African novels
Films set in South Africa
1970s thriller films
1970s disaster films
Films shot at Pinewood Studios
Films directed by Peter R. Hunt
Films about mining
Films set in London
1970s British films