Haunted Gold

I love John Wayne, but I struggled with Haunted Gold.

It was produced under a six-picture contract Wayne signed in 1932 to remake some Ken Maynard westerns. See my review of The Big Stampede for details. This one remakes The Phantom City.

Wayne plays a cowboy investigating an abandoned mine. It’s a dull, talky, Scooby-Doo style mystery involving half-shares in mines, frame-ups, betrayals, and a mysterious Phantom. One assumes Maynard’s version had more life.

Wayne’s performance is stiff and unsure, lacking even a glimpse of his signature laconic persona.

And then there’s Blue Washington as Wayne’s sidekick. It’s an unfunny and demeaning role that sees him run around wide-eyed, scared of every shadow and beholden to superstition. In one scene, Wayne refers to him as “boy,” and in another the villains note his “watermelon accent.” It makes an awful movie even worse.

To be clear, I don’t attribute malicious intent. Casual racism of this sort was acceptable at the time, and the film positions Washington as a clown sidekick. But neither the writing, nor the performance amuse.

Granted, none of these six Maynard remakes are “good,” but Haunted Gold stands out as being both awful and offensive. Even Wayne completists would be hard-pressed to find any value here.