The Secret of Convict Lake
| The Secret of Convict Lake | |
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The Secret of Convict Lake movie poster
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| Directed by | Michael Gordon |
| Produced by | Frank P. Rosenberg |
| Written by |
Ben Hecht (uncredited) Anna Hunger (story) Jack Pollexfen (story) Victor Trivas (adaptation) |
| Screenplay by | Oscar Saul from the short story by Anna Hunger |
| Starring |
Glenn Ford Gene Tierney Ethel Barrymore Ann Dvorak |
| Music by | Sol Kaplan |
| Cinematography | Leo Tover |
| Edited by | James B. Clark |
| Distributed by | Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation |
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Release date
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Running time
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83 min |
| Language | English |
| Box office | $1,350,000 (US rentals) |
The Secret of Convict Lake is a 1951 American black-and-white western film starring Glenn Ford and Gene Tierney. It was directed by Michael Gordon and produced by Frank P. Rosenberg, with music by Sol Kaplan. The film was a critical and commercial success. Ethel Barrymore and Ann Dvorak (in her final film role) co-starred. The story is fiction, based on legends of Convict Lake, located in the Sierra Nevada mountain ranges of northern California.
In 1871, six convicts escape from a Carson City prison. A posse loses them in a mountain blizzard, and after the posse turn back, the convicts continue on foot and one of the fugitives freezes to death. The five remaining are Canfield, Greer, Cockerell, Anderson and Maxwell. They make it to a lake called Monte Diablo, where five women live in a settlement while their men are away prospecting for silver. Granny is the elder, watching over Marcia, Rachel, Harriet and Barbara.
Frightened by these men who arrive at night, the women however permit them to use an empty cabin. Granny hides guns where the unarmed men can't find them and they soon realise that the men are escaped convicts. In exposition, it becomes clear that Canfield (Glenn Ford) has returned to this small town for a reason and the other convicts suspect that he has money hidden somewhere in the small settlement. Canfield, we learn, had been convicted of killing a mine owner, Morgan, and $40,000 had gone missing, unfound after the murder.
Canfield learns that the local woman Marcia, to whom he is attracted, is engaged to be married to a man named Rudy Schaeffer. It was Rudy Schaeffer whose testimony led to Canfield being sent to the penitentiary. Canfield claims it was Rudy behind the robbery, that Rudy took the $40,000 and unfairly swore testimony against Canfield, who then reveals that he has returned to the town to seek revenge and kill Schaeffer. Marcia finds it hard to accept his version of events, a damning version against her fiancé, while at the same time she is attracted to Canfield.
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