Spy Hunt

This is a very good spy film with an astonishingly novel story element. Amongst the 'actors' are two ferocious black panthers. They get loose from their cages in a train and spies from both sides are hunting them because of some microfilm concealed in the collar of one of them. Howard Duff plays the stalwart good guy American who was supposed to be transporting the panthers to a zoo. He is not a spy for either side. He meets the alluring Märta Torén amd falls for her. She is the one who concealed the mircrofilm in the panther's collar after drugging the panther. There are various mysterious men who may be goodies or may be baddies, and most of them have hunting rifles. George Sherman directs this caper and makes the most of it. The entire adventure takes place in the Swiss Alps. How many dogs and men will be killed by the panthers? How many will be killed by spies of the other side? This one is certainly different. The acting and production are good, but one may well be a bit more nervous the next time one visits the big cat section of a zoo.

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.

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.

This is in almost every aspect a truly amazing film, and there are many odd things contributing to make it unique in its way. The main players and attractions are not Howard Duff and Marta Toren with all their retinue but the two black panthers, that break loose from a train in Switzerland and terrorize the entire landscape, forcing the army to go to war against them and shoot them dead at any cost, while they are invaluable to Howard Duff, their keeper who lost them, and Marta Toren, who used one of them for a spy message. The intrigue is equally masterly contrived, many parts getting involved in this thing, and several of them not hesitating to kill for their business. Walter Slezak, as the inn-keeper, is the one outsider who is totally innocent and provides a charming character for a change and picturesque addition to the stew. It's difficult to follow all the ways and intrigues and turnings of various spies and agents, which it is impossible to discern immediately who is on which side, but some of them come out alive. It's a delicious piece of cake quite out of the ordinary, there is no other spy thriller like it, but its most rewarding qualities are the marvellous shots from the hunting parties in the Swiss Alps, reminding of great natural documentaries, like those of the Swede Arne Sucksdorff, and also of Frank Borzage's "Mortal Storm" ten years earlier.

This is an Off-Beat "Out There" Story of a Female "Cold-War" Spy, Hiding Microfilm in the Collar of a Circus-Panther and the "Game is Afoot".

Marta Toren is the Spy and Howard Duff is the "Caught in the Web" Bystander.

The "Spy Hunt" of the Title is a bit Misleading...The Spy is Actually the "Hunter" and the "Hunt" is Literally a "Big-Game" Pursuit when the "Cats" (there are 2) Escape After a Thrilling Train-Wreck.

It Takes Place in the Mountains of Switzerland and the Expanding Cast...Adding a Journalist...an Artist...a Doctor/Innkeeper (Walter Slezack)...and More,

All Lodged Shoulder-to-Shoulder as the "Hunt" Takes Place. Everyone is a "Suspect" and May Not be What They Seem.

The Movie Fails in Some Respects with an Over-Use of Back-Screen at Times, at other Times the Scenery and the Hunt are Quite Impressive.

The Set-Up is Ludicrous (with the Cats used as a transporting mechanism in the first place),

but it is Certainly a Different Take and a Unique Back-Drop for the "Spy vs Spy" Game that was just Beginning its Long-Run and Became a Genre All its Own.

Slightly Above Average...

But can seem a bit Ridiculous...

the Tension is Terse, the Suspense Palatable, and the Ending, while somewhat Labored Satisfies.

The Beautiful, Short-Lived Marta Toren and the Off-Kilter Template Make it Definitely...

Worth a Watch

Note...The Cat-Wrangling is superb. The "Black-Panthers" are actually Mountain Lions with a Dye-Job.