Exoticalot People are voting emotionally.

Glimmerubro It is not deep, but it is fun to watch. It does have a bit more of an edge to it than other similar films.

Gurlyndrobb While it doesn't offer any answers, it both thrills and makes you think.

Juana what a terribly boring film. I'm sorry but this is absolutely not deserving of best picture and will be forgotten quickly. Entertaining and engaging cinema? No. Nothing performances with flat faces and mistaking silence for subtlety.

JohnHowardReid Copyright 7 February 1933 by Vitagraph, Inc. A Warner Bros. picture. No New York opening. U.S. release: 17 December 1932. U.K. release: May 1933. 57 minutes. (Available on an excellent Warner Home Video DVD). SYNOPSIS: Hampered by bandits, two heirs try to find a missing fortune in an abandoned gold mine. This film is a re-make of the 1928 silent "The Phantom City" which starred Ken Maynard and Eugenia Gilbert. The director was Albert Rogell, the photographer Ted McCord. "Blue" Washington repeats his original role..COMMENT: It would be wrong to exaggerate the virtues of this little western, but the fact is that on a first viewing - despite some clumsy effects that don't quite come off - it's a mighty entertaining little piece. It's only on a second look that you realize the reason for the mismatched cuts, under-cranking and too dark location photography is that the producer has liberally spliced in footage from the 1928 silent version, "The Phantom City". Not only have whole action sequences - including an elaborate chase in which our hero foils his pursuers by pulling a whole house down in their tracks, plus a wonderfully exciting ascent up a mine shaft with displaced beams falling right into the camera, plus a truly astonishing series of stunts from a bucket suspended over a canyon, plus an amazing bit of business when "Duke" (the horse, not Wayne) forces one of the heavies over a cliff - been incorporated, but even background and establishing shots.Nonetheless, that first viewing is certainly a marvelous entertainment experience. You think to yourself, how can they afford all this excitement, all this elaborate staging on a "B" budget? True, the players are strictly second-rate, though Wayne himself gives a likable and ingratiating performance. By contrast, the other players are somewhat traditionally stiff.Although heavy-handed and even at times inept, the direction tries mightily to get plenty of spooky atmosphere out of the sets and situations. In some scenes Wright successfully employs an unusually large variety of odd camera angles. Musuraca's shadow-laden photography is also an asset.

wes-connors On a dark and windy night, harmonica-playing cowboy John Wayne (as John Mason) arrives in a shadowy town, atop his smart-witted horse "Duke". Mr. Wayne is annoyed to find slavish, dim-witted cook Blue Washington (as Clarence Washington Brown) has followed; the servant was ordered to remain back at the ranch. A noticeably superstitious man, Mr. Washington wants to help boss Wayne, but crooks don't fear his "watermelon accent." Wayne's mission is to claim his half-share in a gold mine. He meets pretty blonde Sheila Terry (as Janet Carter), who also may be entitled to a half-interest in the mine... Wayne must battle dastardly Harry Woods (as Joe Ryan) before he and Ms. Terry can put their halves together. "Haunted Cave" has a couple of good action sequences, but they must have been lifted from "The Phantom City" (1928), with actor Ken Maynard and/or his stunt-man in Wayne's role. Washington reprised his role from the earlier film, where his "watermelon accent" was depicted on title cards. As the housekeeper, Martha Mattox is a welcome fright.** Haunted Gold (12/17/32) Mack V. Wright ~ John Wayne, Blue Washington, Sheila Terry, Harry Woods

Michael_Elliott Haunted Gold (1932) ** 1/2 (out of 4) This was one of six films John Wayne made for Warner's years before he would become famous after the success of STAGECOACH. Wayne has to share top billing with Duke, his horse, but I'm sure he didn't mind that too much. Rival gangs both want the claim to a mine, which might be full of gold but the big problem is that it's haunted with the spirit known as The Phantom. This early blend of the Western and "old dark house" genre isn't as bad as you'd expect, although there's some rather strange and mean spirited racism throughout the movie. One interesting thing was that Blue Washington, a black actor, got to play the sidekick to Wayne, which was a nice change of pace considering most sidekicks at that time were white. This new item quickly turned sour as for the most part he was just playing the ignorant stereotype, which included various jokes being thrown at him including being called "Darkie" and one scene where he pretends to be The Phantom only to have a guy say he wasn't because of his "watermelon accent". Outside of that, this is a fairly enjoyable film that manages to make good use of both genres. The horror elements start off with an animated sequence with some bats and the shadow of what's clearly meant to be a Dracula like character. We get the various "spooky" items including cobwebs, black cats, rats and other goodies. The red herrings pop up from time to time and are way too obvious. Check out the scene where Wayne is having coffee with his girl (Sheila Terry) only to have the maid acting like a bad guy. How obvious and over the top she is made me break down laughing. Wayne gives a decent performance even though he hadn't quite gotten his style down yet but I don't think there's any doubt that Duke gets the best scenes.

JimB-4 John Wayne made scores of B-Westerns in the thirties, and in some ways the few he did for Warner Bros. were among the more interesting, having somewhat better production values and execution. There are elements in "Haunted Gold" that would never have been covered by the budget of one of his Monogram programmers, but that's not saying much. It's pretty much the same old thing we'd see from Wayne for the next six or seven years -- good guy helps a sweet young thing outwit nefarious baddies out to cheat her or him out of something. Wayne has physical charm yet is still a callow actor at this time, though no one does much real acting in these. There's no George Hayes to lend true gravitas to the situation, and Erville Alderson, while always an interesting specimen to look at in the movies, is really terrible as a performer in the solid older man part. It's all not really much, until an exciting fight in a cable car between Wayne and an outlaw near the end. What is most notable (and most difficult) about the movie is the sidekick character, Clarence. "Haunted Gold" isn't the first nor would it be the last Hollywood movie to give a black actor bug-eyed terror and clichéd dialect for racial comic effect. But if there can be degrees of acceptability to such stereotyping, this movie seems to take it to a painful degree. For one thing, Blue Washington, who plays Clarence, is a strong, masculine figure of a man -- tall, muscled, intelligent of mien -- yet he scampers about whimpering about spooks and monsters like skinny little Willie Best. It seems immeasurably more degrading (though I'm not suggesting it wasn't degrading for other actors). Perhaps part of the difference is that Willie Best and Mantan Moreland, when they did their frightened "darkie" routine, were funny -- very funny. Watching Blue Washington do this stuff is like watching Sidney Poitier or James Earl Jones do it -- it's difficult not to focus on the humiliation of the actor. The script contains plenty of references to "darkies" and "Smoky" and "that watermelon accent," though Wayne's character treats Clarence more as an amusing comrade than a dimwit or a servant. But none of this makes "Haunted Gold" less uncomfortable an experience, at least if one has any empathy for Blue Washington, an actor who it seems had talent, even if it is sublimated beneath insensitive clichés here.