Die Spur zum Gold

Before leaving prison Jeffrey Hunter is told where a huge cache of buried gold, loot from a robbery that the old man who was Hunter's cell-mate stole and hid before he was caught. Hunter gets out with memorized directions on The Way To The Gold.

This is a neat though low budget story of Hunter's quest for instant riches. His problem is that as it turns out when he gets to town he boards with a family named Williams whose relatives have a branch that we see over in Deliverance. There's Mama Ruth Donnelly, her fine scholarly cosmopolitan sons Jacques Aubuchon and Neville Brand and crazy old Uncle Walter Brennan. Donnelly's husband and Brennan's brother was in on the job, but he was killed and they've spent close to thirty years looking for the loot.

Hunter's only friend is hash house slinging waitress Sheree North who also boards with the inbreds. And there's a very shrewd sheriff played by Barry Sullivan who's just watching and waiting to see how things break.

The Way To The Gold is a really good film despite what I think was a miscast Jeffrey Hunter. Hunter was too white bread for the part of an ex-con. Paul Newman or Steve McQueen would have feasted on this part.

And you'll love the genteel family Williams.