Wild Gold

Showgirl Claire Trevor is fleeing sleazy husband Monroe Owlsley and entranced mining engineer John Boles. She winds up staying with kindly Roger Imhof in a mining town where Boles decides to reopen an old gold mine. Add into the mix comic Harry Green as the impresario of a traveling leg show who wants to make some money, and you have one of the mishmosh scripts that Fox Films made into movies before the amalgamation with Darryl Zanuck's 20th Century Productions: some good bits, particularly Imhof's role, are overwhelmed by a meandering storyline that ends with a huge flood and a sudden, happy ending.

The usually amusing Green inserts himself ineffectively into so many of the subplots that he becomes annoying, and Miss Trevor gives a performance in which she goes squeaky with futile impotence.... not one of her more endearing performances. Boles is muscular and bland. Look fast and you may spot an improbably young Will Geer playing poker.