La montagna rossa

Operating with a limited in number but generally talented group of eight actors, director Phil Karlson, soon to be known for his essays into noir, here creates an engrossing adventure film set in 1933 depression and drought wracked southern Utah, and incorporates many of the elements which later will prove vital to his deserved reputation as an important narrator of urban crime. Residents of a small secluded valley are being tormented by a large mountain lion which, due to a shortage of water, has invaded their region to prey upon livestock, and the bounty for the beast of $150 is coveted by two long-feuding neighbours, one of whom, Tom Eggers (Preston Foster) provides a place to live for a city-bred young man (Lon McCallister), the son of the former love of his host and also the nephew of Eggers' rival, Gil Hawks (Forrest Tucker). The well-crafted scenario includes elements of romance, suspense and humour to the basic plot, and a certain darkness of tone has raised the work above most others of its stamp, with crisp editing (Karlson and Harvey Manger) prevailing, and we enjoy particularly fine performances from Foster and McCallister, with a pleasingly large role for veteran character actor Irving Bacon, a standout as a farmer doubling as a preacher.

Just after watching "The Big Cat", I thought to myself....'should I give this one a 5 or a 6?'....but the more and more I thought about it, the more I realized that I WANTED to like the film more....and that I don't think, in hindsight, that it even quite merits a 5.

"The Big Cat" is a coming of age story about a young man from Philadelphia who is trying to live in the west of 1932...but in some ways fails miserably until he ultimately proves himself. Danny (Lon McCallister) is out of place and often makes a nuisance of himself...yet, inexplicably, Tom and Doris (Preston Foster and Peggy Ann Garner) think he's marvelous. It's especially odd with Doris. Perhaps the pickings are slim out in the rural west, but she adores Danny the second she meets him....and it felt like the scriptwriter used this as a plot device to get us to pull for Danny. I, on the other hand, thought he was a bit of a screwup....and was not so impressed by him.

The story is about a cougar who is supposedly huge and very aggressive (the cat they used in the film appeared aggressive though not particularly large). Folks try to shoot it repeatedly without success (why? The cougar was not magical) until eventually the non-violent Danny rises to the occasion.

For me, Danny seemed like a very uncertain and rather wimpy guy and seeing his transformation at the seemed a bit farfetched. Not impossible...but hard to believe. Overall, a film that failed to connect with me....not a bad film but also not a particularly memorable one.

The short-lived trans-Atlantic studio Eagle-Lion gave both the English and American moviegoers this Depression Era tale of a young man going to live in the wilds of Wyoming to escape the growing poverty and joblessness in Philadelphia where he's from. He's got an uncle there in Forrest Tucker, but goes to live with his mother's old boyfriend Preston Foster who has a place. Foster and Tucker aren't exactly best friends and living between both of them and trying to keep peace is preacher/farmer Irving Bacon and his wife Sarah Haden and their daughter Peggy Ann Garner. Of course she prefers McCallister to Tucker's oafish kids Skip Homeier and Gene Reynolds.

It's bad times like every where else. There's a drought, but also a mountain lion eating stock everywhere. The government has put a bounty on the cougar and Foster wants to collect it as he could use the money to jump start his ranch with significant timber holdings. Of course so could everyone else use the bounty money in those troubled times.

The film is in bad need of restoration to bring out the lush color location cinematography. But without any truly big names in the cast the film I'm sure is far down the pecking order. The cast gives some decent performances with McCallister and Garner a nice young couple the audience can identify with.

When it's restored I'm sure The Big Cat will be fine family viewing.

**SPOILERS** With the great depression and a disastrous drought all the people in this little area of Southern Utah needed was a deadly mountain lion on the loose killing their cattle to make them forget their troubles.Having a $150.00 reward, a lot of money back in 1933, on it's head everyone in the area were out to get the deadly feline but with no success because the lion was always one step, or paw, ahead of them. Into the mix comes young Danny Turner, Lon McCallister, from Philidelphia looking for a job at the Tom Egger place.

Tom, Preston Foster, sent Danny a letter about three months ago about Danny helping him with his work in the tan bark business but since them Tom's tan bark business went kaput. Since there came on the tan bark market a new and cheaper synthetic tan bark that put poor Tom out of business. Danny shocked at Tom's situation, as well as his own, decides to stay with him and help him gun down the killer mountain lion for the reward money. Money that can give Tom a jump start to fill his orders of tan bark and get him, and Danny, back on his feet again.

Meanwhile Tom had been feuding with his neighbor Gil Hawks, Forrest Tucker, for over twenty years a feud that started over Lucy, Gils's, sister, who Tom wanted to marry. The feud got so out of hand that Lucy soon fled east to get away from both her brother Gil and her lover Tom and to keep from ending up dead by getting caught in the crossfire of these two lunatics.

In Philidelphia Lucy met the man that she married and with whom had Danny but she and Tom secretly carried a torch for each other .Now with both his parents dead and no work to be found Danny could only go west to Utah and Tom for work and for someone who would treat his as if he were his own son.

The fighting in the movie between Tom and Gil is so off-the-wall and outrageous that you wonder how they both survived all that time without ending up dead behind bars or in a loony bin. With guns and axes and chains the two were going at it in what seemed like a crazed daily ritual. The appearance of the killer cat was the only thing that kept the two from really going at it and finishing themselves off for good long before the movie ended.

Danny also got the two Hawks boys Jim & Wid, Skip Homeier & Gene Reynolds, mad at him when pretty Doris Cooper, Peggy-Ann Garner, went wild over the young city boy even before she ever laid eyes on him. This showed how desperate Doris was for a normal young man who wasn't part of the crowd that she had to deal with in that part of of state.

Trying to track down the mountain lion Tom shoots a buck for food and after Danny, who couldn't bring himself to gun down the buck, dragged it back to Tom's place but forgot to take Tom's 30/30 rifle that he used to track down the panther. With the deadly cougar picking up the scent and then trying to eat the hanging buck carcass Tom foolishly tries to shoot the cat with a .22 rifle. A .22 is useless against a large wild animal like a mountain lion and Tom gets killed by it when it ambushes him . Danny feeling guilty about Tom's death, since he left the gun that would have done in the cat back in the woods, goes out on his own and finds it's lions lair. With the unexpected help of a member of the hated Hawk family, their dog Spike, Danny has it out with and finally finishes off the elusive and deadly killer.

A young easterner returns to the drought affected valley where his mother grew up, aggravating the already intense feud between his mother's ex-fiancé and his estranged uncle. Complicating things even more is a huge mountain lion that holds the small community virtually hostage, killing precious livestock.

Though not exactly politically correct, this is an outdoor adventure with a whole lot of heart. A simple folksy script, earnest performances, and excellent location photography make this almost impossible to resist.

With all the limited resources of a low-budget film in nineteen-forty-nine, director Phil Karlson managed to pull off a minor miracle by getting believable performances out of the animals.