Chasse aux espions

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.

A top secret microfilm is smuggled via a cigarette and a meatball (don't ask!) into the collar of one of a pair of black panthers being transported by "Quain" (Howard Duff) from Europe to the United States. When their train is derailed and the panthers escape, "Quain" and his newly found journalist pal "Catherine" (Märta Torén) - whom we know to be not quite all she seems - soon find themselves at a local mountain hotel where the prospects of a panther hunt attract both the army and a few colonial-types who fancy a bit of a big game hunt. The arrival of "Paradou" (Robert Douglas) reinforces the threat to the beasts and to anyone who gets in the way of those malevolently determined to secure this (pretty robust) little document. What now ensues doesn't auger very well for these lithe and beautiful creatures, nor for "Quain" and "Catherine" either unless they can keep alert and stay one step ahead of their rivals. The beginning of this is quite fun, the middle portion quite intriguing, but the concluding third of the film is all just a little bit too formulaic. The presence of Douglas does little to enhance any sense of jeopardy, but he does always manage to exude a degree of nastiness and that compensates a little before the denouement. The production is rudimentary - lots of fairly obvious green-screen effects that suggest they never left California, but in the end it's a watchable, amiable, crime thriller that passes seventy-five minutes effortlessly enough.

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.

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.