Gold ** (1974, Roger Moore, Susannah York, Ray Milland, John Gielgud, Bradford Dillman, Tony Beckley) – Classic Movie Review 8445

Long-time Clapham South resident Susannah York plays the forlorn love interest Terry Steyner, who ends up two-in-a-bath with her co-star Roger Moore, in director Peter R Hunt’s 1974 South African-filmed adventure thriller hokum Gold.

Wilbur Smith’s novel comes to the screen as a lacklustre adventure yarn that stars Roger Moore as the hero Rod Slater, the newly appointed General Manager of the Sonderditch gold mine, smoothly fighting off a plot to flood the mine and increase the world price of gold.

Ray Milland and John Gielgud perform with distinction as ‘Pops’ Hirschfeld and Farrell, but the movie is tarnished by its feebly written stock characters and dully predictable outcome.

Also in the cast are Bradford Dillman, Tony Beckley, Simon Sabela, Marc Smith, Norman Coombes, John Hussey, Bernard Horsfall, George Jackson, Ken Hare, Paul Mafela, Ralph Loubser, Dennis Smith, Paddy Norvel and Garth Tuckett.

Wilbur Smith and Stanley Price adapt the 1970 novel Gold Mine by Wilbur Smith.

The song ‘Wherever Love Takes Me’ (Elmer Bernstein music, Don Black lyrics) was Oscar nominated as Best Original Song.

Controversy arose because the movie made in South Africa under the Apartheid regime. It was one of Moore’s four African set and shot movies of the Seventies, also including The Wild Geese (1978), Shout at the Devil (1976), and The Spy Who Loved Me (1977).

Though it was released only in a double bill in the US, Gold was a hit, and Moore and many of the crew re-assembled for Wilbur Smith’s Shout at the Devil.

Moore had recently stopped smoking cigarettes, so his character’s  smoking scenes were cut to a minimum.

RIP Zambian-born South African novelist Wilbur Smith, who died on 13 November 2021, aged 88.

Tony Klinger writes: ‘We made two of Wilbur’s books into films, Gold and Shout at the Devil. I knew him from his first days as a notable, best-selling author. My father [Michael Klinger] helped him set up business wise. As a teller of stories he was one of the very best.’

Smith’s second published novel The Dark of the Sun (1965), about mercenaries during the Congo Crisis, was filmed as The Mercenaries (1968) starring Rod Taylor and Yvette Mimieux.

© Derek Winnert 2019 Classic Movie Review 8445

Check out more reviews on http://derekwinnert.com

Roger Moore stars as the hero Rod Slater in Gold.