"Golden" Movies - Dreaming of Gold Has Been of All Times
Gold has always been food for the imagination.
Gold has also made many people dream about better days to come, if we only look at the several gold rushes that took place in the 19th century in the United States.
Gold inspires people to think about wealth, independence, bounty islands, nice swimming pools and tasteful cocktails.
And babes and hunks for the taking, depending which gender you are of...
Gold has inspired many movie makers as well.
First and for all we have Charlie Chaplin who made his mark with the silent movie 'Gold Rush' (1925), inspired by the gold rush of 1848 in California.
He wrote the script, directed the movie, played the leading part and composed the music.
Many years later, when sound was available, the movie was re-released with sound.
The story tells about a group of men that didn't have that much success with getting to the place where they are supposed to be, let alone with finding gold.
Then we have 'Kelly's Heroes' (1970) which I personally saw in a sold out movie theatre in Malaysia.
I can tell you, that was quite an experience by itself.
The audience roared whenever the heroes accomplished something, booed the villains and burst out in dancing and clapping when the main title song was played when the trucks with gold were driving off...
The fact that such movie stars like Clint Eastwood and Teddy Savalas were playing leading roles must have helped as well.
The story is quite simple: a group of American soldiers tries to find Nazi gold behind the enemy lines.
The know about this gold through a captured German colonel who tells them 16 million of gold will be shipped to a German base France secretly; he, the colonel was in charge of that shipment.
Needless to say this movie has a lot of humor in it, which was not lost to the Asian audience in Malaysia.
Of more recent date is 'Three Kings' (1999) which is set at the end of the Gulf War.
A little group of adventurous soldiers (amongst who George Clooney) find a map of which they believe it will lead them to a hidden cache of gold the Iraqi stole from Kuwait.
But just when they are near the gold, within touching distance so to say, they need to choose to get rich themselves or help a community of people threatened by the Iraqi army because the USA had encouraged them to rise against Sadam Hussein but was not helping them in that battle.
Dilemma: go after the gold and let the town be wiped out or helping the civilians? Greed or humanity? Those who saw the movie know how it turned out...
Of course there are many more movies and teleplays where the stories are wrapped about the all important asset of gold.
Gold has been and will be food for our dreams...
"If I were a rich man...
" Tevje sang in 'Fiddler on the Roof' and that tells it all.
If we were rich, we would enjoy ourselves, AND of course help our nears and dears (although some people seem to forget about that once they won the lottery or the likes).
IF we struck gold we would do it all very differently, and very responsibly and decently and nicely and...
if only we first had that gold!
Gold has also made many people dream about better days to come, if we only look at the several gold rushes that took place in the 19th century in the United States.
Gold inspires people to think about wealth, independence, bounty islands, nice swimming pools and tasteful cocktails.
And babes and hunks for the taking, depending which gender you are of...
Gold has inspired many movie makers as well.
First and for all we have Charlie Chaplin who made his mark with the silent movie 'Gold Rush' (1925), inspired by the gold rush of 1848 in California.
He wrote the script, directed the movie, played the leading part and composed the music.
Many years later, when sound was available, the movie was re-released with sound.
The story tells about a group of men that didn't have that much success with getting to the place where they are supposed to be, let alone with finding gold.
Then we have 'Kelly's Heroes' (1970) which I personally saw in a sold out movie theatre in Malaysia.
I can tell you, that was quite an experience by itself.
The audience roared whenever the heroes accomplished something, booed the villains and burst out in dancing and clapping when the main title song was played when the trucks with gold were driving off...
The fact that such movie stars like Clint Eastwood and Teddy Savalas were playing leading roles must have helped as well.
The story is quite simple: a group of American soldiers tries to find Nazi gold behind the enemy lines.
The know about this gold through a captured German colonel who tells them 16 million of gold will be shipped to a German base France secretly; he, the colonel was in charge of that shipment.
Needless to say this movie has a lot of humor in it, which was not lost to the Asian audience in Malaysia.
Of more recent date is 'Three Kings' (1999) which is set at the end of the Gulf War.
A little group of adventurous soldiers (amongst who George Clooney) find a map of which they believe it will lead them to a hidden cache of gold the Iraqi stole from Kuwait.
But just when they are near the gold, within touching distance so to say, they need to choose to get rich themselves or help a community of people threatened by the Iraqi army because the USA had encouraged them to rise against Sadam Hussein but was not helping them in that battle.
Dilemma: go after the gold and let the town be wiped out or helping the civilians? Greed or humanity? Those who saw the movie know how it turned out...
Of course there are many more movies and teleplays where the stories are wrapped about the all important asset of gold.
Gold has been and will be food for our dreams...
"If I were a rich man...
" Tevje sang in 'Fiddler on the Roof' and that tells it all.
If we were rich, we would enjoy ourselves, AND of course help our nears and dears (although some people seem to forget about that once they won the lottery or the likes).
IF we struck gold we would do it all very differently, and very responsibly and decently and nicely and...
if only we first had that gold!