La belva

A lot of people were disappointed by "track of the cat" .Some expected a western ,hadn't Wellmann made a masterpiece of this kind with "the ox-bow incident"?And more were disappointed by Mitchum's part.

I do think that "track of the cat" is an underrated work;almost unique,it's very hard to compare it with another film.Roughly,it's the story a family under the thumb of a tough guy ,Curt(Mitchum) and his holier-than-thou mother(Bondi).Two members of this family are different:Curd's sister(Wright) who remained a spinster and tries to rebel against the others .She tries to make her younger brother,Harold,marry a girl ,Gwen ,who knows better :Harold is a shy sexually repressed young man who's looked upon as a sissy by Curd.

What's really bewildering is that,after half an hour,Mitchum and the rest of the family go separate ways.He 's on the trail of a wildcat he absolutely wants to kill.While he's away,Gwen tries to urge Harold to leave home ,the unity of the family begins to fragment at the edges.

More than the splendid landscapes where Mitchum dressed in red wanders and lights his fire with the pages of a book of Keats poems(in an almost contemporary work ,Bunuel's "la mort en ce jardin" ,they light a fire with pages of the good book after all!),Arthur's funeral is the highlight of the movie :filmed in "subjective camera" (seen ,so to speak ,thru the dead's eyes) ,it shows the living in front of the gaping hole.Editing is often wonderful and succeeds in connecting the two apparently separate stories.The mystery touch is increased by the old Indian's presence ,who seems to know all the secrets of those hostile mountains.

I've just seen "Track of the Cat" (1954) on TCM. Beulah Bondi plays Ma Bridges. Robert Mitchum is Curt. Hedda Hopper's's little boy William is Arthur. The sister, Grace, who hates Curt, is played by Teresa Wright. Gwen is portrayed by Diana Lynn. Philip Tonge is Pa. Carl Switzer is the hired-hand.

Curt is an arrogant bully who pushes the rest of the family verbally and physically. Grace hates it that nobody stands up to him. Tab Hunter is Harold the youngest who's afraid to stand firm. He wants to marry Gwen but everybody, except brother Arthur, is against it. They don't like her. Arthur is the family peacemaker. Ma Bridges most definitely isn't sweet or kind, bitter fits. And Pa is a drunk and a womanizer. And there's the Indian hired-hand, Joe Sam, who's superstitious to a fault. Then we have the killer panther that brings sorrow to the family.

The panther causes the ranch problems by killing cattle. That sends Curt and Arthur out after it. Arthur is killed by the cat. Curt goes on his own to stop the animal.

Now the family is in turmoil (and always has been) and the bickering gets worse. What happens next? Does Curt make it back? How about Harold? Does he learn to stand firm where his family is concerned?

I enjoy good westerns and Wild Bill Wellman directed this one. It's different and it's good. Give it a try!

We are up in the snowy mountains near Aspen, we are in the company of the brooding and feuding Bridges family. Their inner fighting is not the only thing blighting their lives, for a panther is on the loose and as it kills all in its way, it becomes evident that it's also symbolising something deep and foreboding.

Track Of The Cat is directed by the highly accomplished William A Wellman and adapted by A.I. Bezzerides from the novel written by Walter Van Tilburg Clark. Hauntingly eerie and dripping with a sense of unease, it's however more triumphant as a technical piece than it is as a crux story driven one. Wellman had long wanted to make a colour film whilst only working from a black and white palette, he does it here and the result is fascinatingly gorgeous, helped no end by ace cinematographer William H. Clothier's CinemaScope cinematography brilliantly bringing the Mount Rainier location to life (the only way to watch this is in widescreen). All the production needed was to get snowy weather, and they got it, and then some! An interesting point of reference to the weather is that lead man Robert Mitchum (Curt Bridges) stated it was the hardest shoot he ever worked on. Some scenes are truly magnificent, atmosphere drips across the sparse snowy ground, with dark trees seemingly waiting to attack the small framed actors, a burial sequence viewed from the POV of the dead is sumptuous - in short the picture looks gorgeous, but what of the core story and acting heart?

Frankly the story is guilty of being over talky, because as we marvel at the surrounds and buy into the sense of dread that hovers throughout, we are subjected to what can only be described as over written waffle, making me I actually wish that I had read the novel prior to viewing the film. The extensive chatter would have been easily forgivable if the pay off via the panther itself was dramatically impacting, but sadly we are robbed of a crescendo ending - something Wellman would later say was an error of judgement (he is rumoured to have even disowned the film at one point). Of the cast, Mitchum is good, moody and bully like, watch as he baits Diana Lynn (poor) as Gwen Williams, while William Hopper puts in a fine turn as Arthur Bridges. The rest? well they are solid enough, though Carl 'Alfalfa' Switzer as a very aged portentous Indian raises an unintentional laugh. After plodding around like a decrepit old crippled specimen throughout the picture, he suddenly turns into an Olympic 100 meters champion at the films finale! Yes it's safe to say that Track Of The Cat is a very odd picture indeed. 6/10

A disturbingly dysfunctional family is at the heart of TRACK OF THE CAT, which tries to impose symbolic significance on the threat of the creature that is being stalked by the two oldest brothers. But the tale, filmed in monotonous B&W style with only highlights of real color allowed, is somber, tedious and talky.

The performances are standard except for Mitchum who does a believable job as the loutish oldest brother. TERESA WRIGHT, DIANA LYNN and TAB HUNTER do fairly standard work, under William A. Wellman's slow-paced direction.

It's a stark and brooding story of an isolated farm family living in a remote area and haunted by the symbolic "cat" of the title. Photographed in muted WarnerColor with effective background music by Roy Webb, its somber wintry atmosphere is well captured in the opening scene but becomes tedious before the story reaches a midway point because a real connection with the troubled characters is never really made.

All the cast members have done better work elsewhere. It's hard to believe how matronly and severe TERESA WRIGHT became for this role, only a few years beyond her delicate work as a leading lady in many films of the '40s. WILLIAM HOPPER is effective as Mitchum's outspoken brother.

All the interiors are filmed in a style that seems more like a filmed play than a film. BEULAH BONDI as the embittered mother manages to give some gravitas to the story. ROBERT MITCHUM gives his usual sturdy and colorful performance as the oldest son hellbent on tracking a killer cat. TAB HUNTER as the weakest younger brother has less to work with.

A fairly interesting, harsh, character-driven tale that should have been much more effective with better dialog and family dynamics.

Track of the Cat (1954)

** (out of 4)

Strange but ultimately disappointing family drama hiding behind the Western/Adventure genres. The film tells the story of a dysfunctional family stranded on a ranch during the 1880s. The family is bullied around by the middle son (Robert Mitchum) and his mother (Beulah Bondi) but the others begin to rise up as Mitchum is out tracking a deadly mountain lion. Okay, this is a film I had been wanting to watch for many years but within twenty-minutes I knew I was in trouble and the film never picked up. I was really shocked at how boring this film was considering Wellman was directing it and apparently this was a pet project of his. I'm not sure where to start but I guess we can mention all the family drama stuff, which naturally gets blamed on a bully and a religious freak. All of the drama here lacks any real drama and in fact all the characters just come off so obnoxious that I didn't care what happened to them. Another problem is the entire "track of the cat" with Mitchum wondering around without much to do. It seems Wellman never tries to build any tension in these scenes and one has to wonder why it was even in the story. I'm going to guess the cat was used to throw out that "good vs. evil" theme but it never works. I was also pretty disappointed in Mitchum's performance, which was dry and rather dull but then again I didn't care for any of the other performances either. It was strange seeing Carl 'Alfalfa' Switzer in the role of the elderly Indian and he certainly comes off the best. What does keep the film going is its beautiful cinematography captured in all its 2.55:1 glory. The scenery is another reason to watch the film with the snow covered mountains really coming off quite beautiful.