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Flowing Gold

1940, Movie, NR, 82 mins

Flowing Gold: Review

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Garfield is a drifter, distrusting, embittered, and on the run from the law, who enters a mud-rutted oil town. Oil-rig boss O'Brien befriends him and gives him a job. There's precious little time since the lease on the well will run out soon. In their haste, the drillers have several accidents, one of which results in O'Brien's breaking a leg. Garfield takes over and brings in the gusher; then he and Farmer, a street-wise gal as hardened as he, decide to face the murder charge Garfield has been evading. Beyond Garfield's dynamic persona, this is just another routine film for him, one with a fairly predictable plot. FLOWING GOLD was turned out quickly by Warner Bros. to take advantage of the enormous popularity generated by MGM's BOOM TOWN (1940). This was O'Brien's last film for Warners, made just after he completed the successful KNUTE ROCKNE, ALL AMERICAN. When Jack Warner refused to give him a raise at the end of his contract, O'Brien walked out. Their final exchange was blunt. "You'll be back, Pat," snorted Warner. "Anytime, Jack. You know my terms." "You an artist or a banker?" sneered Warner. "For you, I'm a moneymaker," retorted O'Brien as he walked out of Warner's office. The film was also a nadir for Garfield, who was repeatedly denied the meaty roles he requested. Garfield wanted very much to play the lead in THE ADVENTURES OF MARTIN EDEN (1942) for Columbia and JACK LONDON (1943) for United Artists, but Jack Warner would not lend him out. In desperation, Garfield sent a note to Warner upon which he printed in large bold red letters: "PAROLE ME!" But he stayed in the old Warner Bros. cell of melodramatic roles until he decided to leave the studio and strike out on his own. Frances Farmer's tale concerning this film was even more tragic. Her part in FLOWING GOLD was originally slated for Ann Sheridan, but she turned it down, despite the fact that Warners threatened her with suspension. Then Olivia de Havilland refused the part, and Garfield begged the front office to give the role to Farmer, who had recently returned from New York, where her volatile temperament had gotten her kicked out of the Group Theater and the production of Hemingway's "The Fifth Column." Farmer was having an increasingly hard time getting roles. Her snarling, vicious attitude--she was a real hard case who had made only one significant appearance, as a hard case, in COME AND GET IT (1936)--had put her on everyone's "don't touch" list. Garfield prevailed, and Warners gave her the role in FLOWING GOLD but refused to give her a long-term contract. Her notorious vagrancy charge followed, and then agonizing years in mental institutions, where she was lobotomized. She reemerged in the late 1950s as a nightclub singer and appeared in a low-budget programmer, THE PARTY CRASHERS (1958). Before her death, Farmer announced to the world that she had a torrid affair with Garfield during the making of FLOWING GOLD, one of the few women in this talented actor's life to ever make public Garfield's wide-ranging womanizing. leave a comment
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