Mother Lode is a 1982 adventure film made by Charlton Heston´s own production company Agamemnon Films. It was directed by Heston and produced by his son Fraser Clarke Heston (who also wrote the screenplay) and Martin Shafer.
The film stars Heston in a dual role (twin brothers Silas and Ian McGee), as well as Kim Basinger and Nick Mancuso as a gold-hunting couple in title roles. The movie was shot near Vancouver, British Columbia. The film had a very limited cinematic release in the United States, had a limited VHS release shortly after and was released on DVD on March 29, 2011. The movie has yet to be released in Blu-ray format.
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When her husband George disappears after a flight up to northern BC's interior wilderness to search for gold, Andrea Spalding (Basinger) contacts Jean Dupre (Mancuso) for help, who is serendipitously available for hire after intimidating a surly Mollyco corporate superior/passenger with aerobatics in a company Cessna 206, then landing, exiting and walking away from the aircraft as it continues to taxi onto an active runway with said superior still aboard and into the path of a landing Cessna 185. Together, Dupre and Spalding embark on their search in a neglected de Havilland Canada DHC-2 Beaver, along the way encountering a mechanical breakdown and gypsy fisherman Elijah (John Marley), who earnestly urges them to stay away from "Headwater".
On arrival at Headwater, Dupre accidentally crashes the plane during the water landing, yet he and Spalding survive, shaken but unhurt. From there the movie evolves into a plot of suspicious activities and a hermitous prospector (Heston), and then into a whodunit mystery/adventure, involving mistaken identities (Heston's second role), the truth about Spalding's husband, greed and murder.