Smuggler's Gold (1951)

The Age of Commercialism

I like movies that are aware of what they are selling... without [any] greater aspirations than to make people laugh and that's it.

In truth, there is barely enough story here to make a film.

Not sure how, but this is easily one of the best movies all summer. Multiple levels of funny, never takes itself seriously, super colorful, and creative.

SMUGGLERS GOLD – 1951 A lightweight crime programmer with a touch of noir that was put out by the b-unit at Columbia Pictures.This one is set in a small coastal town in California. Local fisherman and tackle shop owner, Carl Benton Reid, has a sideline. He smuggles gold off shore to waiting ships who then sell it in the Orient at twice the price. His boss, William Forrest, owns a gold mine, does not like the Government set $35 an ounce price. He would rather sell on the black market for a nice profit and no income tax.Living with Reid is his niece, Amanda Blake, (Miss Kitty on Gunsmoke) who knows nothing about her uncle's sideline. Now on the scene comes Cameron Mitchell, Mitchell and Blake are engaged to be married. Mitchell, a deep sea diver, has just spent 3 months in hospital recovering from a diving accident.Mitchell it seems no longer wants to dive and says he is looking for a straight job. Reid agrees to have a look around for his soon to be son in-law. That night, Reid is grabbed by one of the two men he uses for the smuggling racket. The man, William Phillips, tells Reid about the other member of the gang, Robert Williams. Williams is drunk and unhappy with his cut, he is threatening to rat the group out to the police. Williams is down at a shack on the dock waiting for Reid to show in order to discuss a new split arrangement.Mitchell shows up at the shack also looking for Reid. Williams, soon starts a fight with Mitchell and gets a sound beating for his troubles. Now Reid arrives and sends Mitchell to grab a first aid kit from the shack. Once Mitchell leaves, Reid picks up a handy piece of iron pipe and brains Williams. That fixes the possible rat problem.When Mitchell returns with the first aid kit, Reid says, "It is a bit late for that, he is dead". Needless to say Mitchell thinks he killed the man during the fight. Reid tells him to cool down. They will take the body out and dump it in the water. Nobody will miss the drunken lout Reid says. "No point ruining your life over an accident". Mitchell agrees though he knows the Police should be called.Mitchell now goes to work on Reid's fishing boat. Two weeks later the Police show to ask a few questions, they found the body of Williams. Reid tells them the man was a drunk and he thought Williams had just left town. The thing more or less blows over.Mitchell is now approached by an old navy buddy about coming to work for him at Pearl Harbour. This seems like a good idea to Mitchell and his fiancé, Blake. This idea is delayed for several days as Mitchell now discovers that his future father in-law is a smuggler. Mitchell is forced by Reid to help deliver the latest shipment.Reid has also been unhappy with his end of all the gold deliveries. He plans to dump the load overboard and mark it with a buoy. He will then tell his boss, Forrest, that he was forced to dump the cargo because the coast guard was inspecting vessels at sea. Reid then plans on using Mitchell to retrieve the gold, before taking a quick trip to Mexico to sell the goods.Mitchell agrees to recover the gold for a price. Reid understands greed and offers the man a nice piece of the action. Needless to say, the big boss, Forrest, is not amused with this turn of events. He figures correctly that Reid is trying a fast one. He will watch Reid and swoop in after the cargo is recovered.Now the viewer finds out that Mitchell had spilled to Blake about the whole deal. She puts the Coast Guard in on the play. Reid and company have reached the spot where the gold was dumped. Mitchell suits up and goes overboard. He finds the swag and Reid and crewman Phillips, bring the stuff up.Reid now turns out is a bigger swine than imagined. Out comes his knife and he cuts the safety line to Mitchell's diving suit. Crewman Phillips is not happy about this, so Reid shoots him. A one way split seems OK to Reid.The plan of course now collects a fly in the ointment. The Coast Guard arrives on the scene. A quick exchange of lead results in Reid picking up some extra weight. The Coast Guard get a line down to Mitchell just in time, and haul him up to safety. Crewman Phillips gives a dying declaration that Reid had killed Williams.Mitchell and Blake get married, sell the tackle shop and head for the new job in Hawaii.The director here was veteran b-film helmsman, William Berke. Berke cranked out b features with titles like, DEATH FANGS, PARDON MY GUN, MARK OF THE GORILLA and THE LOST MISSILE. He did however make a few watchable crime/noir films like, ARSON INC, HIGHWAY 13, THE FALCON'S ADVENTURE, THE MUGGER, STREET OF SINNERS, COP HATER, FBI GIRL and TREASURE OF MONTE

Professional deep sea diver (Mitchell) gets mixed up with girlfriend's (Blake) unscrupulous uncle (Reid) in a gold smuggling operation.The movie's about as unremarkable for its time as a studio (Columbia) product could get. It's a cheap programmer intended to fill out a double bill at the neighborhood Bijou and shows it. The most watchable part, in my book, are the location shots aboard ship or on the waterfront. Otherwise, the indoor sets are, shall we say, economical. At the same time, the story develops in unimaginative fashion, without at least some stab at novelty.The 60-minutes does provide a good chance to catch a girlish Amanda Blake of Gunsmoke fame, that is, before she set up shop in Dodge City and deepened her voice. Already, she fills out a skirt and sweater nicely.On the other hand, I don't know where Cameron Mitchell's attention is, but it's not on his part, to put it politely. (Catch those diving helmet close-ups where he seems to be thinking about dinner instead of drowning.) Then there's Pop (Reid) who at least provides some characterization as the endlessly double-dealing "Pop". Note too how quickly the story wraps up, as though the film stock is about to run out.All in all, it's the kind of pedestrian effort that would soon happily migrate to TV.

(Some Spoilers) After recovering from a near fatal drowning accident during a salvage operation off the Pacific Coast deep sea diver Mike Slone, Cameron Mitchell, feels that he just doesn't have it anymore in him being able to go under water. It was also during that accident that Mike's best friend and fellow deep sea diver Jack ended up being crushed to death in the wreckage. A fact that Mike, even though he blacked out because of lack of oxygen, held himself responsible for. Now back on his feet Mike is still very apprehensive in going back to his old job as a deep sea salvage diver even though at the time of his accident he was the very best in the business.It's at his girlfriend's Susan Hodges, Amanda Hodges, Uncle 's Pop Hodgers, Carl Benton Reid, place that Mike tries to get back into action in overcoming his fear of the deep but ends up getting involved in even deeper stuff then just getting his feet wet! Gold smuggling & murder! Unknownm to both Mike and his niece Susan Pop has been smuggling gold bars through customs in order that his supplier Arthur Rayburn, William Forrest, would avoid paying taxes on the precious medal. The fact that the gold is from Rayburn's gold mine makes things even more serious in that if he's caught smuggling his gold out of the country for as much as $100.00 , not the set US Government price of $35.00, an ounce he can end up losing his gold mine together with his freedom as well!It's when one of Pop's gold smuggling seamen Hank Peters, Robert Williams, went to see him in getting more for his service that Mike unknowingly got involved with Pop's gold smuggling racket! With Hank getting whacked by Pop after Mike, in preventing Hank from hurting Pop, knocked him out cold it looked like Mike in fact killed him! Pop uses Hank's death, that Pop was wholly responsible for, to blackmail Mike into going along with him when after Mike found out about Pop's smuggling activities in smuggling Rayburn's gold. It was then that Pop had Mike forgo a great job, in Sunny Hawaii, he was offered by his old Navy buddy Gil Johnson.It's when Pop had to ditch a gold shipment when the US Coast Guard were bearing down on his boat that he suddenly got the bright idea to have Mike, despite his phobia about going underwater, to retrieve it for him and keep Rayburn, who's gold it is, in the dark about the whole thing! Thus getting the entire $500,000.00 worth of gold all to himself! Or so he thought!***SPOILERS*** Not too convincing deep sea drama with Mike Slone who was afraid to even step into a bathtub go the whole nine, or 60 fathoms, yards under the waves to get the ditched gold for Pop whom he knew was going to ditch, or kill, him once he gets it back on his boat!It in fact was US Coast Guard Captain Frank Warren, Peter M. Thompson, who came to Mike's rescue by him together with his crew boarding Pop's boat and putting him out of action before he could do any more damage.By the time the movie was over Mike was well on his way to sunny Hawaii to start his new job at his friend Gil's Mid Pacific Salvage Co. with his soon to be wife Susan Hodges at his side. As for Pop and his partner in crime Arthur Rayburn they ended up paying for their crimes against the US Government in trying to avoid playing taxes, by smuggling gold out of the country, in the worst way possible! : Behind bars and in a pine box!

This one is another of the early 1950s Columbia "shaky A" productions, with all the technical details nicely done, but a script which is a bit too complicated for the rushed manner in which the dialogue is directed. Cameron Mitchell gets himself caught in the middle as his fiancée's uncle has been running gold for a mine owner who prefers the higher prices he gets overseas; and who is trying to get a bigger piece of the action.The weak performance is by Carl Reid, usually a dependable actor, in the role of 'Pop', the chandler/shipowner who has been running the gold. He speaks all of his lines in a manner that underlines that he is a mean SOB masquerading as a nice guy, at all times, no matter whether he is urging Amanda Blake to have another cup of coffee or threatening lead Cameron Mitchell.The whole production is shot in that middling light that marks the transition from Film Noir to the sunlit 'Western Noir' of the late 1950s. Although the script puts a bit of uncertainty into the entire double and treble crosses, the monotony of lighting and performances -- and the mildly overwrought score -- make this no more than an average programmer.