Though the After the Gold Rush script is currently missing, Shannon Forbes recalls that it involved a huge tidal wave coming to destroy Topanga. “It was sort of an end-of-the-world movie,” she said. “At the very end, the hero is standing in the Corral parking lot watching this huge wave come in and this house is surfing along, and as the house comes at him, he turns the knob—and that’s the end of the movie.” Russ Tamblyn was to play an over-the-hill rocker living in a castle; others vaguely recall some scene of George Herms carrying a huge “tree of life” through the canyon.
Despite what the back cover said, Young, over twenty-five years later, could recall only two of After the Gold Rush’s cuts actually being inspired by the movie: the title cut and Cripple Creek Ferry.
Jimmy McDonough
"Shakey" by Jimmy McDonough
2002