I'm sure that Jack Warner didn't realize there would be no more buddy movies with James Cagney and Pat O'Brien when Flowing Gold was before the cameras. With John Garfield substituting for Cagney, Flowing Gold is another of their buddy films, this time with Garfield and O'Brien being oil roughnecks. But O'Brien would be leaving Warner Brothers the following year and the cycle would end with Torrid Zone which came out before Flowing Gold in 1940.
O'Brien and Garfield are working for oil wildcatter Raymond Walburn who is modeled on Frank Morgan's role in MGM's Boom Town. He's got a sure thing oil lease, but Walburn's rival Granville Bates fights him at every turn. It's not clear just why Bates has it in for Walburn, but suffice to say he does.
Ray also has a beautiful daughter in Frances Farmer who Garfield is panting after. But Garfield also is a fugitive on a murder rap and he's got to be discreet in many ways, which is definitely not his style.
Now if you don't think the guys are going to bring the big gusher in on time you haven't seen too many films like these.
Garfield and Farmer have a reunion of sorts here, they both were members in good standing of the Group Theater in New York. Farmer had a torrid affair with Clifford Odets who wrote Golden Boy where Garfield scored his first big success on stage. Over there they did work of great social significance which Flowing Gold will never be characterized as.
Several reviewers and the Citadel film series book, The Films Of John Garfield all say that Flowing Gold was Warner Brothers hurried answer to Boom Town which was given the MGM full star treatment and budget. There certainly are similarities, but Boom Town if you watch it is an ode to unbridled capitalism, it's one of the most rightwing films ever made in Hollywood. We see the stars Clark Gable, Spencer Tracy, Claudette Colbert, and Hedy Lamarr moving the world of high finance and oil politics as well as getting down and dirty in the oil fields. True to Warner Brothers reputation as the working class studio, Flowing Gold has no such pretensions.
Flowing Gold is your routine action programmer the kind Warner Brothers just grinded out by the dozen at that time. All the stars do well here, though Garfield and Farmer would have wished for something better.
O'Brien and Garfield are working for oil wildcatter Raymond Walburn who is modeled on Frank Morgan's role in MGM's Boom Town. He's got a sure thing oil lease, but Walburn's rival Granville Bates fights him at every turn. It's not clear just why Bates has it in for Walburn, but suffice to say he does.
Ray also has a beautiful daughter in Frances Farmer who Garfield is panting after. But Garfield also is a fugitive on a murder rap and he's got to be discreet in many ways, which is definitely not his style.
Now if you don't think the guys are going to bring the big gusher in on time you haven't seen too many films like these.
Garfield and Farmer have a reunion of sorts here, they both were members in good standing of the Group Theater in New York. Farmer had a torrid affair with Clifford Odets who wrote Golden Boy where Garfield scored his first big success on stage. Over there they did work of great social significance which Flowing Gold will never be characterized as.
Several reviewers and the Citadel film series book, The Films Of John Garfield all say that Flowing Gold was Warner Brothers hurried answer to Boom Town which was given the MGM full star treatment and budget. There certainly are similarities, but Boom Town if you watch it is an ode to unbridled capitalism, it's one of the most rightwing films ever made in Hollywood. We see the stars Clark Gable, Spencer Tracy, Claudette Colbert, and Hedy Lamarr moving the world of high finance and oil politics as well as getting down and dirty in the oil fields. True to Warner Brothers reputation as the working class studio, Flowing Gold has no such pretensions.
Flowing Gold is your routine action programmer the kind Warner Brothers just grinded out by the dozen at that time. All the stars do well here, though Garfield and Farmer would have wished for something better.