Chasse aux espions

Howard Duff has picked up a couple of black panthers -- the animal kind -- which he is delivering by train to a circus in Germany. Little does he know that spy Märta Torén has hidden important microfilm in one of their collars. Other spies have gotten wind of this, so they derail the railroad car he is traveling in with the beasts, sending him tumbling down a Swiss mountain. When he awakes, he is in a hotel being tended by the owner, Doctor Walter Slezak, and various characters, all made suspicious by their non-American accents are showing up. Are they there for a newspaper story, or to sketch the beasts, hunt them, or to get the microfilm?

The story of how the term 'maguffin' came to mean something in a film that everyone wants, but it doesn't really matter what it is, is an joke. Two men are traveling in a railroad car. One points to a device the other has. "What's that?" "That's a maguffin." "What's a maguffin." "It's a device for hunting tigers in the Scottish highlands." "There are no tigers in the Scottish highlands." "Then that's never a maguffin."

I'm pretty sure that's the impetus behind the Victor Canning novel this movie is based on. Making them panthers in Switzerland was just intended to obscure the origins. Director George Sherman continues the joke by using he opening music from the Universal Sherlock Holmes series as the opening music to this one, but mostly he handles the story in a straightforward fashion. It's moderately suspenseful. With Philip Friend, Robert Douglas, Philip Dorn, and Kurt Kreuger.

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.

George Sherman, better known as a second feature or assistant director despite having an A flick like COMANCHEROS in his curriculum, comes up with a visually spectacular spy yarn in SPY HUNT, further enhanced by the entrancingly beautiful Marta Toren, herself a spy trying to conceal a negative with supposedly crucial data.

Although what the negative might contain, who it might belong to, and who the information is intended for is never clarified, it is safe to assume that either the action relates to WWII and Germanic-looking heavies are after it, or this is already the Cold War boiling over in the Italian/Swiss Alps.

Regardless of the conflict, it is a riveting film with credible dialogue, good acting from Duff, Friend, Douglas, Donn and Slezak, here playing against type a non-sleazy medical doctor and inn owner. The show, though, is stolen by the mesmerizing beauty of Toren and the panthers roaming wild over lovingly shot rocky, snowy, or arborous landscape. Great action sequences involving the felines, including a fight with a bloodhound. Truly wonderful cinematography by Irving Glassberg.

Well worth watching: 8/10.

The film is tense and exciting throughout. A panther has a message inserted into a collar around its neck, a message which is of great interest to some questionable characters. The panther escapes its cage and is tracked by Howard Duff, representing the U.S. and by parties who represent the subversives (Ivan Tresault being one of them). The entire film deals with the search and provides some very tense moments. Marta Toren is the beauty who has questionable credentials which have one guessing as to which side she is on. A good film which deserves some recognition.



J.W.

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.