La neige en deuil

In this adventure film in the Swiss Alps, a plane crashes and there are plans to make a climb to see if there are survivors. Spencer Tracy does a very good job as a Swiss mountain man who has lived there his whole life and knows the mountain like the back of his hand. His younger brother?, Robert Wagner, who is well over thirty years younger (this narrative was extremely hard to swallow), is a greedy, murderous creep, who thinks the world owes him a payday. Wagner is amazingly convincing in the role, even though in most former and latter roles, he was generally a substandard actor. Maybe this film was a taste of things to come in the future.

This film has two fine performances from the great Spencer Tracy and the young Robert Wagner. The story is taut, suspenseful, and the climbing scenes are fantastic. If you haven't seen this film, check it out (it's shown regularly on American Movie Classics here in the USA and is also available on video). If you truly have an appreciation for good films and solid acting, you won't be disappointed.

This is just one of those movies that never gets old. I love the movie Spencer Tracy is one of the best actors of all time. They just don't make them like him anymore. The action and the drama is top of the line. Go out and Rent this or watch it when it shows up on AMC or TCM or on your local TV station at 2 am when ever you get the chance. You will not be disappointed. This is one of those movies that could never be remade in todays Market. Just who could replace Spencer Tracy or even Rober Wagner. I don't know what else to say about a movie in which climbing a Mountain could keep you interested for 90 minutes. Just the bond between the Brothers is such a great story Enjoy the movie.

The Mountain (1956)

A brightly colored movie with old school Spencer Tracy and new style Robert Wagner in a drama about getting something that doesn't belong to you. The scenery is stunning, clear, high altitude stuff, shot on location in the French Alps. Edward Dmytryk is a Hollywood steady with a good sense of drama, and the movie has good bones.

Loosely based on a true story (a 1950 crash of an Indian airplane), the catchy facts are dwarfed by the stereotypes of the two main characters, and by the general drama and landscapes. The plane wreck is high up in the mountains and a rescue party is waiting to go up in the morning. But then these two brothers (far enough apart in years to be father and son) go up first, the evening before. The acting is first rate all around, which keeps even the slow acts held together decently.

Overall, though, this is a plodding plot. Roughly a third of the time (yes) is pure mountain climbing, which can be fun for a minute but it follows the two men up and then down the mountain in great detail. All well done, yes, but what you really want is some intensity, a greater clash of two moralities, each representing a different generation.

The crash site is really quite believable (if a little concentrated in one spot--I think these high speed crashes get pretty scattered in truth). And the general idea works pretty well, not only the difference in motives of the two brothers but the ability of one brother to look the other way for the other. There is a surprise turn of events at the top, and then another on the way down, when the drama builds at last. And then there is a final little confessional speech that Tracy gives (like he does in many of his roles). He is meant to be the great self-sacrificing, humble man as "good example." It really is, as others write, overly sentimental and frankly unbelievable. And unnecessary, too. Even an unwillingness to talk about the events would have had the same moral effect without the townspeople basically winking in the final scenes.

Alas. Not a classic. If you like technical mountain climbing (with ropes) you might enjoy a lot of it. And some great scenery.

During his career Spencer Tracy essayed a few roles as a foreigner and did quite well in them for a man who was so typically American. Of course the most prominent was Manuel Fidello in Captains Courageous, but he also played a gypsy in Tortilla Flat, a Cuban fisherman in The Old Man and the Sea, a German in The Seventh Cross. He certainly did a lot better than Henry Fonda who was also typically American, but laughable in War and Peace.

In The Mountain he plays a Swiss mountaineer, a simple peasant guy with great dignity and iron moral sense. He's got a younger brother played by Robert Wagner and there's a generation gap between them.

Wagner's performance reminded me very much of what Marlon Brando said in The Young Lions about how he resented working for tips from foreigners in his own country. Wagner wants to get up and out of their Alpine village and doesn't care how. Brando and Wagner are both ambitious, Brando's way was to become a Nazi, Wagner had a less political approach to satisfy his ambition, one a lot more crude though.

A plane crashes on a forbidden Alp near their house, a mountain that Spencer Tracy had climbed solo before. An expedition to reach survivors fails with the death of a friend of Tracy. Wagner wants to go up on the mountain to loot the passengers. Tracy wants to see if there are survivors and they make the climb.

A survivor does turn up actually, a Hindu woman played by Anna Kashfi, this was in fact an Air India plane that crashed. Her survival touches off a test of wills and purpose for the brothers.

I hadn't seen The Mountain for many years and I had forgotten how riveting Spencer Tracy's performance was. In the dialog and in the closeups the anguish in him tears at the audience.

The only criticism I have of The Mountain was that Tracy and Wagner were playing brothers. Tracy was the least vain of all the great Hollywood stars from the studio era, he was known for never wearing makeup. He looks every bit the 56 years on the screen and Wagner looks his age and he was in his twenties then. They're not too believable as brothers, but both are skilled enough players to overcome it. But they should have been made father and son like in Broken Lance.

Outside of that The Mountain is one great film.