Smuggler's Gold

I did not remember that William Berke made films for Columbia pictures, and this one is a good surprise. But on the same scheme, more or less, we can prefer John Sturges' UNDERWATER. I spent a good time with this one. This is a grade B adventure film, plenty of charm and despite the absence of ambition, you feel that the director is a chain one, but very professional. Cameron Mitchel was still young in those years, but not quite as good as he will be later. Maybe this movie should have been better in color, but it's quite worth watching without being WAKE OF THE RED WITCH either, another underwater treasure hunt.

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.

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.