Summary
A splinter of pyrite glints between cedar planks in a sawmill on the American River, and within days the hush of Hangtown’s pines is jack-hammered by pick-axe clangor. Amos Fenton—bookish, idealistic, betrothed to a minister’s daughter—trades sermons for stake-claims, crossing the continent in a fever of manifest ambition. Gold clots his fingernails; San Francisco’s mud streets clot his conscience. While brothels and gambling dens metastasize, Fenton founds a vigilance committee, cloaking extrajudicial wrath in civic virtue. Mary Hampton’s east-coast lace arrives by clipper just as the city’s underworld snatches her for ransom, turning the frontier melodrama into a chiaroscuro of torches, nooses, and moral vertigo. The rescue is less a cavalry charge than a purgatorial night on the wharves where fog, gun-smoke, and gospel hymns braid together, leaving the lovers blood-flecked, married, and eerily sober about the price of civilization.
Synopsis
In 1849, the peace of a small California logging community called Hangtown is shattered when a lumberman discovers gold at his mill. News of the discovery travels quickly, and in a New England town, Amos Fenton prepares to leaves his sweetheart Mary Hampton, in the hope of striking it rich in California. Along with Mary's father, Amos unearths a rich store of gold and, with his newly acquired treasure, he establishes a law practice in San Francisco. The gold rush attracts so many criminals to the city, however, that Amos, disgusted with the prevailing lawlessness, decides to organize a vigilance committee. Mary sails to San Francisco to join her father and sweetheart, but upon her arrival she is kidnapped. Amos and his army of vigilantes ride to her rescue, and after a fierce battle with the outlaws, she is reunited with her future husband.
Director
Cast
