Gold Diggers: The Secret of Bear Mountain

Gold Diggers: The Secret of Bear Mountain is a 1995 American adventure film directed by Kevin James Dobson, and starring Christina Ricci, Anna Chlumsky, Polly Draper, Brian Kerwin, Diana Scarwid, and David Keith. Set in 1980 in the Pacific Northwest, the film follows two teenaged girls who, inspired by a local legend, attempt to recover a fortune of gold inside a mountain.

Plot
In June 1980, teenager Beth Easton and her recently widowed mother, Kate relocate from Los Angeles to the small town of Wheaton in Oregon, where they move into Kate's aunt's farmhouse. Initially, Beth misses the city and resents her new surroundings. In town, she encounters Jody Salerno, a troubled but free-spirited teenager who has a bad reputation. While riding her bike the next day, Beth is forced off the road by a semi-truck, and plummets down a steep ravine, crashing her bicycle into a river, where Jody is fishing.

Kate attempts to ingratiate Beth with two local girls, Tracy and Samantha, and while they are picking berries at the house, Beth encounters Jody, who has been hiding in a tree and throwing cherries at them. Tracy and Samantha warn Beth against associating with Jody, but Beth joins her on a trek through the woods. Beth and Jody quickly become friends, and Jody tells Beth she has an adventure planned for the following day, the summer solstice. When Jody fails to meet Beth that morning, a local cop, Matt, offers her a ride to Jody's house. Jody's mother, Lynette answers the door, appearing shaken and inebriated, and tells Beth that Jody is not home.

Matt brings Beth home, and realizes that he is an old acquaintance of her mother's. Beth receives a phone call from Jody, who directs her into the forest outside her house. She explains that she hid from Matt and Beth because she had broken in and stolen candy from the vending machines in the local high school; she then tells Beth the story of Molly Morgan, a female miner who purportedly died in a mine collapse in Bear Mountain while searching for gold. The girls board a motorized boat which Jody has hidden along the river, and ride downstream and into the mountain, where she has set up a makeshift living space in the cavern entryway. Jody confesses to Beth that her mother and her mom's abusive boyfriend, Ray, had gotten into a fight the night before, and that Jody may have fatally wounded him after he chased her into the woods. Beth urges Jody to go to the police, but she refuses, planning to hide out in the mountain.

As a rainstorm approaches, the girls attempt to leave the cave, but a rock collapse occurs that damages the boat and pins Beth to the cave floor. Jody swims out of the cave and down the river, making it safely past a grizzly bear and to a road where she crosses paths with a sheriff. Beth is rescued just in time, as the water level has slowly risen inside the cave. At the hospital, Jody is confronted by Ray, who is still alive to the surprise of Jody and Beth.

Kate forbids Beth to spend time with Jody, but she appears at a Fourth of July picnic and divulges her plan to return to the mountain to get the gold. Kate eventually decides to let Beth see Jody, and they drive to Jody's house the next day. Inside, they find Lynette, beaten and incoherent, and no sign of Ray or Jody. Lynette is taken to the hospital and Beth insists to Matt that they go to the mountain, believing that Ray took Jody there. Beth assists Matt to the caves, but the two are separated inside. Beth finds Jody, who tells her that a drunken Ray beat her and forced her to take him to find the gold.

Beth goes back to find Matt, and Jody is grabbed from behind by whom she believes is Ray—when she turns around, she finds it is an elderly woman, who then recedes into the shadows. Ray appears and attempts to grab Jody, but is hit over the head with a shovel by the elderly woman. Beth returns to find Jody and Ray, unconscious, but the old woman—ostensibly Molly Morgan—has disappeared. Matt finally finds Beth and Jody and Ray is arrested. Lynette recovers in the hospital and Jody accepts her apologies.

In late August, Matt arrives at Beth's house, and brings her, Kate, Jody, and Lynette to the courthouse, where an attorney is representing an anonymous client who has bestowed a gift to the girls. They are given two bags, each containing gold, and are cheered and applauded by the town citizens including Tracy and Samantha.