This is an uneven film, but worth seeing with all its faults. Filmed partly on location the mountain itself is Mont Blanc, and in a village near to Chamonix. Two brothers live there and one is an elderly looking Spencer Tracy and the other played by Robert Wagner. Based on a French novel everyone speaks English, and Wagner's surly, thick American accent jars. Only Claire Trevor looks and sounds as if she lives there, but her part is so small ( she is in love with Tracy ) that I commend her for taking the role. Most of the action takes place to reach the plane that has crashed there, apparently killing all of the passengers. No spoilers but the film really comes alive during the last half hour of the film, and a lot of the time is spent bickering between the two brothers who go on a search party of their own to reach the crash. The message and I think there is one is that even if one brother behaves abominably badly the other brother will not betray him. This message must have been apparent during the troubled Hollywood years of the 1950's. Beautifully filmed and well directed, the mountain is the star along with the performance of Spencer Tracy.
Review of The Mountain
