“HAUNTED GOLD” (1932) Review
HAUNTED GOLD (Mack V. Wright, 57 min, b&w, 1932)
What’s Happening: A “Phantom” intercedes during feud over gold mine
Famous For: Leon Schlesinger produces and John Wayne stars
Old Dark House elements are here translated to a Western setting. Old Dark Mine, I guess?
It’s simple and cheap, with no score and a stiff artificial acting style. But it’s got good Gothic atmosphere in several early scenes (dig the two mine managers who walk stiffly toward the camera like undertakers at 6:20) and surprisingly tense action at the climax.
Familiar Old Dark House elements are secret identities, secret panels, secret passages, and a series of mysterious missives to call everyone to a fateful gathering.
It’s also got early John Wayne, seven years before he became famous for Stagecoach. Wayne is likeable but little more. If you didn’t know who Wayne was, you might better remember the horse or the comic relief black guy: Clarence, played by Blue Washington.
Blue Washington is no Mantan Moreland or Willie Best, but he saves his “boss” in an early scene and tries, ineptly but heroically, to save everyone else in a late scene. He’s well dressed, too.
The simple story sees the hero and heroine trying to reclaim the mine on behalf of their respective fathers, the co-founders of the mine. But a gang of bad guys schemes to steal it all.
Leon Schlesinger headed the Warner Brothers B-Western unit in the early 30s but became most accomplished as the head of the Warner Brothers cartoon unit in the late 30s and early 40s. To compete with Disney, Schlesinger allowed his directors (Tex Avery most famously) to be as surreal or as nutty as they wished.
Haunted Gold is at least average all around for a 1930s B-Western, certainly worth the time for interested fans.
Action: 6. Gore: 2. Sex: 5. Quality: 6. Camp: 6.
Don’t miss: Nosferatu shadow at 5:00
Quotable line: “There’s still plenty of gold in that mine somewhere!”
Article text copyright 2026 David Elroy Goldweber. Date of post November 2026.
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