Nieves traidoras

A slightly different RKO Pictures movie to the normal - this one's in colour, with a bigger budget, and produced by disaster maestro Irwin Allen, no less. The story mixes in a little film noir with an outdoor action adventure template, and you can tell Allen's influence by the way an action scene has been shoehorned into the narrative at regular intervals. Avalanches, forest fires, you name it - they're here, although they have zero to do with the main storyline.

Said storyline sees a woman (Piper Laurie, decades before she became the domineering mother in CARRIE) witnessing a murder in New York, and fleeing the murderer by escaping to a national park in Montana. There, she meets up with various characters, including the butch and heroic Victor Mature, a mild-mannered photographer (Vincent Price, no less), the voluptuous Betta St. John (playing an Indian!), and the thickset William Bendix.

The narrative is a kind of whodunit, with the mystery angle played up for the first half or so (when the characters aren't contending with the random natural disasters, that is). Things become more wild and adventure-style in the second half, with a suitably exciting climax to finish things off. It's not a great film - to be honest, the plot seems all over the place at times - but it is a mildly engaging one nonetheless.

The best thing about Dangerous Mission is the great location cinematography of Glacier National Park where the film was shot. It must have boosted tourism in Montana considerably after it was in theaters and later on television. No doubt this film made WOR TV in New York when RKO closed as 99.9% of that library was sold to them.

Piper Laurie witnesses a mob killing in New York, but she's afraid to testify and flees back home to Montana where she knows everybody and strangers can be spotted easily. She's a guest at the tourist lodge owned by Betta St. John and her father Steve Darrell who's also got some problems with the law. But being an Indian he's pretty good at staying outdoors and living off the land.

Two strangers take an interest in Laurie both quite charming in their own ways, Victor Mature and Vincent Price. Just the names will tell you who the good and who the bad guy is. William Bendix is also in the cast as the chief Forest Ranger in the park. I wish Bendix had been given more to do in Dangerous Mission.

With the great outdoor cinematography in color you can't really call this a noir film. Still the plot elements would be noir if it were set in the big city.

Another thing Dangerous Mission has to recommend it is a very good depiction of a landslide which wreaks havoc on a hillside house and later Victor Mature goes out and tames a downed power line. The final chase scene across the glacier is also well done.

Though the plot is routine, it's all well written and staged and Dangerous Mission is enjoyable.

Plot line for "The Old Corral, 1936": Night club singer (Hope/Irene Manning) witnesses a gangland murder and heads West and is saved by Gene Autry; Plot line for "Dangerous Mission, 1954": Night club bookkeeper (Piper Laurie) witnesses a gangland murder and heads West and is saved by Victor Mature. RKO added 3-D, Technicolor, Glacier National Parks location and still came up short of the original. Not surprising, since the original had Gene Autry, the Sons of the Pioneers (when Roy Rogers was still a member), Smiley Burnette and Champion.

And even Gene Autry was more animated than Victor Mature. Come to think of it, so was Glacier National Park.

No doubt the real star here is Glacier National Park and its scenic vistas. It's 1953 and Hollywood is trying to lure TV audiences back into theatres with lavish Technicolor that b&w can't compete with, and with a 3-D process that faded as quickly as it soared. In short, Hollywood is looking for new formulas that work. I suspect an uncertain background of this sort accounts for this very odd movie product. In brief, it's a scenic jumble. Maybe you can make sense of story developments, I couldn't. It's a weird blend of noirish plot with The Nature Channel. Something about a mysterious hit-man tracking down a murder witness in the Park. But somehow the thread never really gels amid a welter of confusing events. I also suspect the screenplay is the result of too many chefs, even good chefs like W.R. Burnett, Horace McCoy, and Charles Bennett (a Hitchcock favorite), all of whom are credited, and each likely with his own ideas.

The cast is also an uneasy blend of aging names and hopeful no-names. Mature, Price, and Bendix lend some waning marquee strength, while Laurie and St. John are attractive newcomers. Yet, it's a real stretch to have the nubile young St. John ga-ga over the slightly effete, 40'ish Price. Then too, casting the unlikely Price as a top New York hit-man doesn't help. I realize there's supposed to be a surprise factor here, especially with the guffawing Cheshire's role; still, these come across as little more than artificial plot devices. Note too, the remnants of 3-D that come rolling at us during the avalanche sequence. And judging from the extravagant set for the climactic crevasse scene, "disaster" producer Irwin Allen is already experimenting with big ideas. Anyway, the storyline may jumble, but those Technicolor vistas continue to shine through and remain about the only reason to catch up with this RKO goulash.

When "Dangerous Mission" was made as a another "B" color feature in 1954, it was probably considered by its producers to be a a routine action script. The film did have lovely young Piper Laurie, Betta St. John, Harry Cheshire. plus Vincent Price, William Bendix and as star handsome Victor Mature. But I assert that it had some hidden assets as well: very intelligent direction, unusually lovely Glacier National Park scenery, a logical storyline and first-rate production values from Roy Webb's music to costumes by Michael Wulfe and sets to art direction and second-unit work by Asst. Director James Lane. Also, the script was what I term a "sense-of-life film", of the same sort as "Bend of the River", "Smoke Signal" and "The Miracle Worker". We as viewers in other words only learn about a charismatic but suspect hero gradually, by experiencing his actions which are set against his negative reputation. Price steals the film as a complex character out of place among straightforward personalities; Mature lacks the speech for a senior detective but Bendix, St. John and Laurie and Cheshire are all very good in their roles. Make no mistake; this is an inexpensive film, with the outdoor actions using rear- projection to include most of the Glacier Park locales. But the film looks colorful and very spacious for a "B". It presents a square dance interrupted by an avalanche, a battle with a live-wire, a first-rate forest fire, a stirring chase and climactic battle on the glacier, plus intelligent dialogue and character-revelation scenes. The makers have put together I suggest a first-rate romance, an interesting mystery noir, and a very entertaining adventure. I never miss this one, having discovered it fifty years ago and championed its values for years. With a Keith Andes as its star, it might have become famous.