Chasse aux espions

The film is tense and exciting throughout. A panther has a message inserted into a collar around its neck, a message which is of great interest to some questionable characters. The panther escapes its cage and is tracked by Howard Duff, representing the U.S. and by parties who represent the subversives (Ivan Tresault being one of them). The entire film deals with the search and provides some very tense moments. Marta Toren is the beauty who has questionable credentials which have one guessing as to which side she is on. A good film which deserves some recognition.



J.W.

The story is very predictable but everything is well done so 74 minutes pass very quickly. Especially since there are some very good actors, all of them, Märta Torén, Howard Duff, Philip Friend, Robert Douglas, Philip Dorn, Walter Slezak, Otto Waldis, etc. Plus, no joke, there are also two dogs that play the role of followers very well. And, even better, two black panthers (if they really exist...), who actually perfectly play their roles to be hunted by everyone, people, all the characters, and the two dogs. I don't know how they managed to film those scenes with the panthers. And, all in the picturesque setting of the mountains of Switzerland.

Universal-International's grade B suspense film is built around an outre gimmick MacGuffin: incriminating microfilm is smuggled out of Italy on a train in the collar of a male black panther, which Howard Duff has been hired to transport along with its female mate to America. The rest of the show is the hunt for the deadly escaped panthers, with a group of unsavory spies also on their trail.

This movie desperately needed some star power to punch it up. Since Robert Mitchum starred in "The Night of the Hunter" and "Track of the Cat", two classics shot several years later, he would have been perfect as the lead, and throw in his famous co-star of the '40s, Jane Greer, and wow! But instead we have Duff and Marta Toren, plus a colorless supporting cast.

Lousy script gives zero sympathy to the beautiful panthers -instead they're described as symbolizing pure evil. Not for me, I was rooting for them from the git go.

I guess we'll have to wait for Ryan Coogler to direct a big-budget remake! At least he'll know who the true hero and heroine of this story are.

George Sherman, better known as a second feature or assistant director despite having an A flick like COMANCHEROS in his curriculum, comes up with a visually spectacular spy yarn in SPY HUNT, further enhanced by the entrancingly beautiful Marta Toren, herself a spy trying to conceal a negative with supposedly crucial data.

Although what the negative might contain, who it might belong to, and who the information is intended for is never clarified, it is safe to assume that either the action relates to WWII and Germanic-looking heavies are after it, or this is already the Cold War boiling over in the Italian/Swiss Alps.

Regardless of the conflict, it is a riveting film with credible dialogue, good acting from Duff, Friend, Douglas, Donn and Slezak, here playing against type a non-sleazy medical doctor and inn owner. The show, though, is stolen by the mesmerizing beauty of Toren and the panthers roaming wild over lovingly shot rocky, snowy, or arborous landscape. Great action sequences involving the felines, including a fight with a bloodhound. Truly wonderful cinematography by Irving Glassberg.

Well worth watching: 8/10.

The story begins in some country behind the Iron Curtain. Evidence that the rightful leader of the nation was murdered and was replaced by a communist stooge is being taken out of the country by some spies. However, the secret police are right behind and they apprehend most of the conspirators...but don't manage to get the microfilm with the evidence. Soon, one of the spies comes up with an insane solution for how to get the information out to the Free World...she sticks it in the collar of a nasty black panther headed to Paris on a train. The secret police learn of this and derail the train...but the pair of panthers manage to make it to Switzerland...along with the man who was paid to escort them to Paris and then the States, Steve Quain (Howard Duff). Can the good guys manage to get their hands on the collar before the forces of evil do?

While the story was mostly interesting, there was one HUGE problem with the plot. In the story, the pair of panthers (also called pumas or mountain lions) are supposedly black. There is no such thing as an animal called a black panther and the species has never had a documented case of a dark or melanistic big cat...NONE. The writer obviously confused this with black jaguars or black leopards...which do actually exist. So, to make the story work, you need to ignore this as well as that the filmmakers actually painted a pair of pumas for the film! Poor animals...especially since something similar was done while making the film "The Beast Master"...and the paint ended up killing the tiger they painted black for the movie!

Overall, a decent time-passer...nothing more.