Power of a major physical disaster as theme for an exciting motion picture [based on Wilbur Smith’s novel Goldmine] is evidenced in this British item, lensed entirely in the South Africa locale of its well-developed narrative. Punishing action is tempered by a modern love story.
Roger Moore plays a tough mine foreman unwittingly manipulated by an unscrupulous gang of financiers who want to flood the mine to raise the price of gold on the world market.
Particular attention has been given to the terrifying underground sequences, and tremendous realism is accomplished in an opening tragedy of men caught in the grip of a sudden flood and later in the climactic flooding.
Moore delivers in pat fashion and Susannah York is a love as the wife of the mine operator who is used by her husband in the web of deceit woven by an international syndicate whom he represents.
1974: Nomination: Best Song (‘Wherever Love Takes Me’)
