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Donald's Gold Mine
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Wikipedia article
'Donald's Gold Mine' (or 'Donald's Golden Mine' in some versions) is a 1942 Donald Duck short film by Walt Disney Productions.
Plot
Donald Duck is a gold miner. While digging ore in his gold mine, Donald sings "Oh My Darling, Clementine". His donkey, Jenny, mocks his terrible singing and Donald kicks his minecart into it, in retaliation, provoking a series of tit-for-tat attacks between them.
Afterwards, Donald accidentally gets his pickaxe stuck up the back of his shirt. In the course of trying to separate himself from the pickaxe (which, at one stage, involves Donald getting the pickaxe head stuck on his own head), Donald fortuitously uncovers a rich vein of gold. In his excitement, he tosses the nuggets up into the air and they spook the donkey as they clatter to the ground. The donkey takes off, dragging the minecart, and Donald along with it, off to the entry chute of the nearby ore processor.
Donald screams for help as he and the rocks all tumble down the chute face first onto a conveyor belt. First Donald is put through a gear crusher that smashes all the rocks into fine gravel. Seeing the danger for his life, Donald immediately begins to try and run away up the conveyor belt but runs into a large rock. The large rock hurls Donald backwards and right onto the gear crushers, but luckily the top gear is missing a tooth where Donald lands and he goes through unharmed.
Next, Donald slides into a section where two large scrub brushes brutally scrub him and the ore. Seeing the danger Donald tries to run ahead to avoid this but a mechanism pushes Donald and the ore directly into the scrub brushes. Donald goes through scrubbing inside the brushes and eventually wiggles his head out of the brushes looking disorientated. The brushes sense the disruption and a metal pole smashes his head right back into the giant scrub brushes for more scrubbing. Eventually Donald's bottom and legs wiggle out of the scrub brushes and sensing the disruption stops and the metal pole again smashes Donald back down into the scrub brushes to continue to be scrubbed. Donald's top half emerges with brush bristles in his mouth that he spits out. Sensing the disruption once again stops and dispatches a set of robotic arms to pick up Donald by his sleeves and finally get him clean by a much more brutal method.
Holding Donald high in the air, the robotic arms take Donald to a giant wash board and a giant barrel filled with water. The arms smack Donald into the water and then the wash board up and down ferociously until it holds him under water for a short break. Meanwhile, Donald finally breathes causing bubbles to come up from the water before starting round two of washing. Donald is taken faster up and down but this time into the water as well seemingly causing a lot of pain by his looks. The arms then hold him under water for another short break of him breathing more bubbles before tossing him out of the water to the ground.
Looking disorientated again and wet now a giant claw then goes behind Donald and pushes him forward to a circular column that spin dries Donald very fast leaving him even more disorientated and dizzy. The mechanism pushes Donald forward back to a conveyor belt for his next station filled with four giant crushers.
Donald is still dizzy and disorientated not really realizing what is going on. Luck is on his side and his narrowly evades all the crushes before regaining his senses and running ahead to avoid being crushed. He runs to the side where a pipe is located that sprays water out forcing Donald down a chute and to a new station.
Donald lands into a giant gold sifter which shakes him back and forth in a Latin dance like fashion further disorientating him before losing all control and flying towards the next station.
He flies into a large section of rollers made for more cleaning going up and down and being doused with water by a shower head over and over again before being seeing forward to the final station.
Eventually, he is tipped into a gold bar making machine. The donkey, nervous about his owner's fate, stands vigil at the output conveyor belt of the machine. A gold bar emerges with Donald's hat on top. The donkey shakes his head and sheds a tear for Donald, who has apparently died in the machine. However, Donald soon emerges from the machine, alive and well, albeit immobilized by gold that has been encrusted around him by the machine with a 24K stamp on his feet. The donkey laughs in delight as Donald twiddles his thumbs annoyed while the gold encrusted around his body is keeping him immobilized.
Voice cast
* Clarence Nash as Donald Duck and Donkey
Home media
The short was released on December 6, 2005, on 'Walt Disney Treasures: The Chronological Donald, Volume Two: 1942-1946'.
References
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