Charlton Heston’s second film production (on Blu

Artistic note: (3/5)

Synopsis

Andrea Spalding hires adventurer Jean Dupré to help her find her missing husband in the inhospitable mountains of Canada’s far north. There, they meet Silas McGee, an old hermit who has been exploring huge underground galleries for 30 years in search of a gold deposit. But Silas is not the only one to covet gallery gold…

• Original title: Mother Lode
• Media tested: Blu-ray
• Genre: adventure
• Year: 1982
• Director: Charlton Heston
• Cast: Nick Mancuso, Charlton Heston, Kim Basinger, John Marley, Dale Wilson
• Duration: 1 h 42 min 24
• Video format: 16:9
• Cinema format: 2.35/1
• Subtitling: French
• Soundtracks: DTS-HD MA 2.0 monophonic English, French
• Bonus: combo with Blu-ray and DVD of the film – no bonus
• Publisher: Rimini Editions

Art commentary

Shot in the wild and photogenic landscapes of British Columbia in Canada, gold fever is the second and final feature film directed by Charlton Heston. Produced, written and co-directed by his son Fraser C. Heston (who appeared as a child Moses in The ten Commandments in 1956), this film tells the adventures of a couple, Jean Dupré (Nick Mancuso) and Andréa Spalding (Kim Basinger), in search of the husband of the latter, a missing gold digger. On site, in British Columbia, they will be confronted with a very strange solitary character who operates a silver mine, Silas McGee, played by Charlton Heston. The adventures of their quest, Indiana Jones style, begin with the crash of a seaplane: a very real accident unforeseen in the scenario but which was filmed and integrated into the film. Despite the name of Charlton Heston well highlighted by advertising, the hero of gold fever is held by Nick Mancuso whose charisma is far from equaling that of the archetypal actor of epic films. Charlton Heston is satisfied here with a double secondary role but which is not uninteresting in the career of the artist because he has rarely played dark and disturbed characters like that of Silas/Ian. For the touch of seduction, the female character, rather dull and destined to scream, was entrusted to the beautiful Kim Basinger who was just starting out in the cinema and who was content with a role of figuration. According to Fraser C. Heston, this is the movie The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948) by John Huston who inspired his screenplay. However, oscillating between several genres, gold fever favors the anguish and terror of the psychopath in its second part, moving briskly from adventure film to psychological thriller. The classic production is efficient and always at the service of the action without getting lost in useless digressions: the most informed will have noted in the credits the name of Joe Canutt who directs the second team, responsible for the beautiful sequences of action, and who had overtaken Charlton Heston in the chariot race of Ben Hur (1959). gold fever is an unassuming B-movie that’s worth viewing for its twin attributes: the beauty of Canadian nature and the presence of huge star Charlton Heston in virtually his last major role. The very beautiful HD copy offered reinforces the quality of the show: only regret, the absence of the interview with Fraser C. Heston available on the American DVD of 2011…

Technical Comment

Image : HD copy, variable definition, often good, and excellent sharpness on the details, homogeneous and discreet film texture (shooting in 35 mm with Panavision cameras, Master Format 2K), clean image, very good control of contrast, bright image outdoors, frank lighting well rendered indoors, detailed shadows in the very numerous low-light sequences, deep blacks, warm calibration, fairly nuanced colorimetry in naturalistic hues with some variations based on the flesh, saturated tones

His : monophonic English 2.0 mix, clear and balanced dialogues without distortion, good dynamics on the atmospheres (crash, explosion and flooding in the mine galleries) and the slightly intrusive music of Kenneth Wannberg; Balanced VF, a little breath, dated but correct dubbing with the voices of Georges Aminel for Charton Heston and Richard Darbois for Nick Mancuso

Our opinion

Image : (4/5)
Sound mixes: (3/5)
Bonuses: (0/5)
Packaging: (3/5)

IMDb :

Blu-ray/DVD combo available on Amazon

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