Secret of Treasure Mountain

I remember reading about Arizona's Lost Dutchman Gold Mine as a boy. It sure fired up my imagination, the various clues to its location and the lore going with it. Columbia used the material twice: the first in 1949's Lust for Gold with an A-list production, at least for that budget-minded studio. This movie is the second, but generally inferior to the first.

Nonetheless, production does a good job here with staging desert sequences, especially Kendall's clambering search for the third gold cross. Seems a diverse group (Prince, Burr) has come together at a desert cabin where an old man (Sheffield), his daughter (French), an Indian girl (Cummings), and a half-breed (Fuller) live. Clashes occur because of conflicting aims, especially as Burr and Prince search for the lost Treasure Mountain mine.

Reviewer Hefilm is right: the movie is uneven. Except for Burr, the rest of the cast doesn't really register, especially Fuller in his pivotal role. Then too, Prince is a nice guy, but lacks the gravitas to be convincing, particularly when he trades punches with the burly Burr. Note too the racial aspect of Indian and white. This was occurring at a time when the civil rights movement was getting headlines across the country, and I expect there's some cross-over here.

All in all, despite the pedestrian first part (familiar San Fernando Valley), the movie's visually entertaining. And that's along with a generally unpredictable storyline that manages a few twists. The package may not equal the 1949 version, but still remains a decent little adventure flick.