Touches You

Lack of good storyline.

Excellent but underrated film

It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

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

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.

An early John Wayne western that only ran for an hour, this was surprisingly entertaining. Since he was a beginning actor and this was a Grade B-type of production, I didn't except it to be so entertaining, although now that I've watched a lot of early '30s films, I am not surprised. Movies in that era were pretty fast- moving ones.What makes this fun is the combination of western action, a few spooky things and comedy. The latter is mostly supplied by Blue Washington who plays "Clarence Washington Brown," a Mantan Morleand-like character. Yeah, I know this kind of role is demeaning to blacks and it's almost embarrassing to watch nowadays, but Washington was funny. The "western" part of the story is just so-so.

This western reminds me of an "old house film".....a ghost town with a "real" ghost! Secret panels, shadows on the walls, eyes peering thru slits in the walls, etc.It also gives Blue Washington the chance for some great "scared reaction" comedy (ala' Mantan Moreland or Willie Best).I don't much care for westerns, but the "supernatural" elements in this film make it worth watching!