"Mother Lode" was one of only two feature films to have been directed by Charlton Heston, the other being his version of Shakespeare's "Antony and Cleopatra". He also directed a made-for-television version of Robert Bolt's "A Man for All Seasons", and it was an open secret in Hollywood that he had directed the final scenes of Sam Peckinpah's "Major Dundee" when Peckinpah was too incapacitated through drink to continue. "Mother Lode" was a collaboration between Heston and his son Fraser, who acted as both scriptwriter and producer. Two years earlier, Heston had acted in "The Mountain Men", for which Fraser had also written the script.
Gene Dupre and his girlfriend Andrea Spalding head for northern British Columbia in an amphibious plane. They are searching for Dupre's friend George Patterson, who disappeared in the area while prospecting for gold. Patterson believed (a belief shared by Dupre) that a rich "mother lode"- a principal vein of gold ore- is located somewhere in the area. On arriving in the area, they become involved with another prospector, a Scotsman named Silas McGee, who with his brother Ian has been looking for the "mother lode" for many years and has opened up a mine. They soon realise, however, that Silas is not as friendly as he seems at first sight.
Apart from the photography of the Canadian wilderness, the most striking thing about the film is the scene where Dupre, attempting a water landing, manages to crash his plane, although both he and Andrea survive unhurt. This scene, however, was not in the original script. The crashing of the plane was a genuine accident, but after it happened Heston decided to incorporate the footage into the film and rewrite the script accordingly. In fact, he had no alternative, because there was insufficient money on the budget to acquire another aircraft to reshoot the scene.
And when the best thing about your film is a fortuitous accident, you know you've got problems. Heston's "Antony and Cleopatra" is an excellent film, and his "A Man for All Seasons" a reasonably good one (if overshadowed by the Fred Zinnemann/Paul Scofield version of the same story), but his directorial touch seems to have deserted him with "Mother Lode".
To begin with, the acting is not of a high standard. Heston wrote in his autobiography that he had problems with his leading couple, Nick Mancuso and a young, pre-stardom Kim Basinger, who took a strong dislike to one another and had difficulty working together. There is certainly very little chemistry between them, but this does not matter as much as it might have done in other circumstances. The film is an adventure story, not a love story, so the emphasis is on the search for the gold, not the development of the romance between Gene and Andrea. Heston's own performance as Silas is not his best. I will leave comments on the accuracy of his Scottish accent to the Scots, but to me it always seemed a distraction.
The film is also badly directed. The storyline is never easy to follow, and we cannot always keep track of which characters are still alive and which are dead, and who has been killed by whom. A lot of the problem is due to the fact that we cannot always hear or see clearly what is going on. Too much dialogue was obscured by background noise, such as the noise of the plane's engine, and too many scenes were almost impossible to follow because they were shot in near total darkness, especially those in the mine.
Working as a father/son team does not always seem to have been beneficial for the Hestons. "The Mountain Men" was a mediocre film, but "Mother Lode" is a downright bad one. When I reviewed that reactionary, bigoted Western "Arrowhead", a film from much earlier in Heston's career, I said that it was the prime candidate for the title of his worst-ever film. Having now seen "Mother Lode", it has at least one rival for that unwanted title. 3/10.
Gene Dupre and his girlfriend Andrea Spalding head for northern British Columbia in an amphibious plane. They are searching for Dupre's friend George Patterson, who disappeared in the area while prospecting for gold. Patterson believed (a belief shared by Dupre) that a rich "mother lode"- a principal vein of gold ore- is located somewhere in the area. On arriving in the area, they become involved with another prospector, a Scotsman named Silas McGee, who with his brother Ian has been looking for the "mother lode" for many years and has opened up a mine. They soon realise, however, that Silas is not as friendly as he seems at first sight.
Apart from the photography of the Canadian wilderness, the most striking thing about the film is the scene where Dupre, attempting a water landing, manages to crash his plane, although both he and Andrea survive unhurt. This scene, however, was not in the original script. The crashing of the plane was a genuine accident, but after it happened Heston decided to incorporate the footage into the film and rewrite the script accordingly. In fact, he had no alternative, because there was insufficient money on the budget to acquire another aircraft to reshoot the scene.
And when the best thing about your film is a fortuitous accident, you know you've got problems. Heston's "Antony and Cleopatra" is an excellent film, and his "A Man for All Seasons" a reasonably good one (if overshadowed by the Fred Zinnemann/Paul Scofield version of the same story), but his directorial touch seems to have deserted him with "Mother Lode".
To begin with, the acting is not of a high standard. Heston wrote in his autobiography that he had problems with his leading couple, Nick Mancuso and a young, pre-stardom Kim Basinger, who took a strong dislike to one another and had difficulty working together. There is certainly very little chemistry between them, but this does not matter as much as it might have done in other circumstances. The film is an adventure story, not a love story, so the emphasis is on the search for the gold, not the development of the romance between Gene and Andrea. Heston's own performance as Silas is not his best. I will leave comments on the accuracy of his Scottish accent to the Scots, but to me it always seemed a distraction.
The film is also badly directed. The storyline is never easy to follow, and we cannot always keep track of which characters are still alive and which are dead, and who has been killed by whom. A lot of the problem is due to the fact that we cannot always hear or see clearly what is going on. Too much dialogue was obscured by background noise, such as the noise of the plane's engine, and too many scenes were almost impossible to follow because they were shot in near total darkness, especially those in the mine.
Working as a father/son team does not always seem to have been beneficial for the Hestons. "The Mountain Men" was a mediocre film, but "Mother Lode" is a downright bad one. When I reviewed that reactionary, bigoted Western "Arrowhead", a film from much earlier in Heston's career, I said that it was the prime candidate for the title of his worst-ever film. Having now seen "Mother Lode", it has at least one rival for that unwanted title. 3/10.