Touches You

Thanks for the memories!

Although it has its amusing moments, in eneral the plot does not convince.

Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

Suprisingly engrossing, old-fashioned adventure yarn, especially considering its length. Moore wisely vetoed the initial choice of Spielberg to direct, and instead surrounded himself with Bond regulars Peter Hunt and John Glen. These two give the story the epic feel that OHMSS had, and deliver tight, intense and claustrophobic action sequences down the mine. Moore does well playing a more flawed version of his James Bond interpretation.

With the 50th anniversary of the James Bond 007 film series approaching, and being a big fan of the third actor to have played the role, I decided to familiarise myself with some of his other film and television work, and I knew about this film he made just after Live and Let Die, from director Peter Hunt (On Her Majesty's Secret Service). Basically at the Sonderditch mine in South Africa a tunnel has collapsed, and underground manager Rod Slater (Sir Roger Moore) and his best friend and chief miner Big King (Simon Sabela) go to rescue those injured, the two are friends despite some of the white miners disregarding the black workers. The collapse is identified as not being an accident, there is a plot by a criminal syndicate in London to destroy the mine to profit from the share dealing, with regards to the gold supply distributed, and the mine owner's son-in-law Manfred Steyner (Bradford Dillman) is involved with the plan to flood the mine drilling through the underground dike and releasing the water from the reservoir. Killed in the collapse was the mine's original general manager, and there is a vacancy to be the new one, and Steyner interviews Slater as he knows he has the best qualifications, but he has another candidate in mind, and during the meeting Slater meets Steyner's wife Terry (Superman's Susannah York), who does not return his attraction interests. Slater and Terry meet again so that she may influence the decision for the general manager position to mine owner and her grandfather Hurry Hirschfeld (Ray Milland), and as a result she and he start an affair, Steyner is not happy he becomes general manager, but Slater only continues drilling work after placing a new safety system in the mine, that will block the tunnel in case a flood does happen. Slater has no idea of the plot by the crime syndicate, and aware that his wife is having an affair with him Steyner decides to let this go ahead so that he will be distracted while the mine is collapsed, and soon enough the dike is destroyed and a flood breaks, trapping thousands of workers below. Luckilly though the story is reported on the radio news and Slater hears it while holidaying with Terry, and she is a pilot, so agrees to fly him immediately to the mine to defuse the situation, while Steyner is watching from a hill far and above the scene watching to see the disaster unfold according to plan. Going down the mine shaft and climbing through the flooding tunnels, Slater and Big King struggle against the raging waters and slowly falling rocks, the safety charge is connected and ready to blow and stop the flooding, but Big King sacrifices himself having to detonate the charge. Steyner is murdered by his accomplice Stephen Marais (Tony Beckley) after hearing on the radio that the mine disaster has been averted and their plan has failed, but he also ends up killing himself when the car he uses goes flying off the cliff and blows up, and the end sees a badly injured Slater taken away to hospital with Terry by his side. Also starring Sir John Gielgud as Farrell, Bernard Horsfall as Dave Kowalski, Marc Smith as Tex Kiernan, Norman Coombes as Lemmer, John Hussey as Plummer and a very young Patsy Kensit as Little Girl at Christmas Party. I admit that Moore is a bit wooden in this film, but I can't imagine anyone else in his role, and he assisted by a good cast of stars, even though they don't necessarily do as much, Dillman though is a great choice for the manipulative villain, the story has unnecessary scenes, but the mine scenes just about exciting, especially towards the end, and the title song by Jimmy Helms is catchy, it may look and feel old fashioned, and you don't see much gold, LOL, but it is an alright adventure. It was nominated the Oscar for Best Song for "Wherever Love Takes Me" , and it was nominated the BAFTA for Best Sound Track. Worth watching!

Technically, "Gold" is rather uneven at best. There are quite a number of underground scenes that are simply too dark. Another problem is scenes that go on far too long drag on the film. The whirlwind romance between Roger Moore and Susannah York takes up too much time and could have been tactfully trimmed, thus tightening the overlong run time of 120 minutes. On the plus side, is an interesting plot to flood a South African gold mine, which would cut world production by 30%, and drive up the price of gold. Moore's heroic attempt to save the flooding mine and save 1000 trapped men provides plenty of excitement. .................. - MERK

Absolutely brilliant thriller, highlighted by the great performance of the man himself, Garth Tuckett. A gripping tale that kept me on the edge of my seat the entire time until the ultimate climax when garth uttered the words "Go and see Mr Eade". The performance brought me to tears and I left the cinema crying like a little girl. I wonder why an actor the likes of garth tuckett never went on to greater things. I would like to see Garth make his long awaited comeback to the silver screen in the near future. I've heard a rumour that an independent movie called "Read pages one to fifty" is coming out early next year, so ill keep a keen eye out for that one. I rate this movie a ten out of ten. Garth Tuckett, Have my children.