Movie Cosmos - The Naked Hills

Description:

Tracy Powell, an Indiana farmer, gets the gold fever and heads for Stockton, California in 1849. There, he abandons his first partner, Bert Killian, and teams up with Sam Wilkins, a claim jumper employed by Willis Haver. Six years later, Powell returns to Indiana and his sweetheart, Julie. They marry and he tries farming again but, on the night their son is born, he takes off again searching for gold. This time he heads for the hills with an inveterate prospector, Jimmo McCann. A decade later, the two are still hunting for their big strike when McCann is killed in an accident. Powell returns home with news of a big strike but the deserted Julie will have nothing to do with him. His friend Killian will not believe him but Haver, now a banker gives him a small loan and then beats him out of his claim. Many years pass before he comes home, now sixty-years-old, and this time, his wife and son open their home to him. But he vows to go prospecting come next spring.

Top Cast >

David Wayne

As Tracy Powell

Keenan Wynn

As Sam Wilkins

James Barton

As Jimmo McCann

Marcia Henderson

As Julie

Jim Backus

As Willis Haver

Denver Pyle

As Bert Killian / Narrator

Myrna Dell

As Aggie

Lewis L. Russell

As Baxter

Frank Fenton

As Harold

Fuzzy Knight

As Pitch Man

Jim Hayward

As Counter Man

Christopher Olsen

As Billy as a Boy

Steven Terrell

As Billy as a Young Man

Top Crew >

Josef Shaftel

Producer, Screenplay, Director

Gene Fowler Jr.

Editor

Herschel Burke Gilbert

Original Music Composer

Helen S. Bilkie

Story

Rudi Feld

Art Direction

Frederick Gately

Director of Photography

Reviews:

John Chard (4/10)

Gold Discovered In California.

The Naked Hills is directed by Josef Shaftel, who also co-writes the screenplay with Helen S. Bilkie. It stars David Wayne, Keenan Wynn, James Barton, Marcia Henderson and Denver Pyle. Music is by Herschel Burke Gilbert and Pathecolor cinematography is by Frederick Gately.

1800s California and Tracy Powell (Wayne) is gripped by gold fever and deserts his friends and family to search the hills for the precious metal.

Very routine gold fever Oater that plays like a poor man’s Treasure of the Sierra Madre. It spans decades as Powell lets the search for gold take over his life, while the background threads involving his partners, both romantically and gold seeking, make up the drama as he heads towards his day of destiny. An opportunity is wasted to really produce a psychologically strong film about an obsessive man who keeps failing, but Shaftel constantly resorts to formula fodder to tell his story and it hurts the piece. Cast are fine, especially Wayne, who gets a chance to be the lead man and delivers a performance of note in spite of the insipid screenplay. 4/10

2014-07-07