Gold mines are something that’s generally associated with the Western genre, yet I’ve never seen them in an actual Western movie (outside of pale rider - but even in that movie you don’t really see anything inside any mines iirc).
I find it really odd and interesting how gold mines are something commonly associated with the Western genre despite not appearing much or even at all in western movies. The only Western media with prominent use of gold mines are Western video games, but movies don’t really have gold mines. I wonder where the association originated from.
Have a nice Funeral… Sartana will pay is basically all about a gold mine.
Spaghetti Westerns with individual scenes or shootouts in gold mines there are many.
As for US westerns, there’s obviously the role model for the above mentioned Ruthless Four and Find a place to die, namely Garden of Evil. And Paint your Wagon is also all about gold mining.
I found the first part amazing but the second parts dragged on and I did not like the ending. But that is how I experienced this movie. It is currently on Netflix here in the Netherlands but I watched on DVD
Actual gold mines are maybe not that common, don’t know really, haven’t thought about it.
But gold treasures are in a lot of SWs I think. In GBU of course, but others as well, and the stagecoach made of gold in The Stranger Returns (1967) is also worth mentioning.
There is a even a gold treasure in the early Eurowestern-Winnetou movie Treasure of the Silver Lake (1962).
yeah… i think gold mines are not really present in the genre for budget reasons. The ones that are there are tiny… i think these films just didn’t really have the budget for a proper goldmine.
There are gold mines for sure, but the sets are pretty limited so they are only limited to brief scenes. A proper gold mine would have required too much money most likely. Even a fistful of dollars has a scene in a gold mine, which no one mentioned.
