No.106 : The Mountain (1956)

The Mountain at the IMDb

 Spencer Tracy and ‘Number 2’ Robert Wagner star in this 1956 thriller that sees two squabbling brothers attempt to reach the site of a mountain plane crash.

The brothers have an age difference of 30 years and it certainly shows as old shepherd Spencer has to deal with his angry young man brother Robert. No concession is given to accents or costumes so you have the slightly jarring spectacle of a sharply dressed, American accented Wagner bemoaning his fate as an ‘entertainer’of rich young women - he should try a job in insurance!

The film opens as a brave model aeroplane gives its life to the motion picture industry. It looks like an airliner in the long shots but when we focus on the pilots it looks like they've recycled a set from a World War 2 bomber flick - no wonder they crashed! Despite it being model work the actual crash happens off screen but the camera pans back to give us a rubbernecker's view of the devastation.

Back in the village at the foot of the mountain a rescue attempt is mounted. They ask Spencer along but he’s ten years retired and refuses to get involved, believing the mountain has it in for him after several accidents. His gadabout brother is keen to go but we suspect his motives. The initial rescue proves rubbish when they need rescuing themselves and they decide to wait until spring before going back.

Robert, ever the humanitarian, refuses to leave the wreck alone but he’s more interested in the money and watches that surely litter the crash scene. Spencer is aghast but soon agrees to accompany his brother as he’d inevitably die without his help. The two set out on the arduous climb across several well constructed but not very convincing sets before reaching the downed plane. As Robert starts filling his boots, Tracy finds a badly injured survivor and promises to take her back to civilisation. Robert doesn't like this plan as the police will take the cash off him so he tries the far more legal route of strangling the girl. Spencer fights him off and starts the perilous decent down the mountain. With Robert in pursuit who will survive and at what cost?

Once you get beyond the strange casting and American accents there is a lot to like in this morality tale. The settings around Mont Blanc are great and it certainly seems authentic. The same can’t be said for the mountaineering shots which understandably were done on sets with rear projection. The climb was well done with a lot of thought given to explaining the technical points without it being patronising. It did beggar belief that the ageing Spencer could skip up the mountain and then haul his brother up too but this guy has some healing ability - hands burnt raw by ropes to fully healed in 10 minutes!

Tracy was the better brother in more ways than one and you could almost believe him as an alpine guide once he got his beret on. Less good was Wagner who had no redeeming qualities whatsoever. We all love a heel but this guy was just a dick throughout.

The finale wasn't a great surprise and, although still a bit shocking, the pieces were set that it couldn't have been any other way. Initially I thought they would have given more character to the mountain what with Spencer foreshadowing a big showdown with the malevolent mound but in the end it was two brothers seeking their own kind of redemption with a fair result recorded for all concerned.

This was an entertaining film with at times a dubious moral compass but as a study of men and their motivations it was well done and with several memorable scenes.

THE Tag Line - Mountain High Score  74%

No.79 : The Grey (2011)

The Grey at the IMDb

Liam Neeson sheds his hard as nails killer with wife problems image from ‘Taken’ to play a hard as nails killer with wife problems in this survival thriller. You can’t say the man doesn’t have range.

Neeson works as a hunter for a petroleum company in Alaska - basically when a work crew goes out to fix the pipes it’s Liam who shoots the wolves. He’s not happy though, and neither are we as we have to listen to five minutes of sentimental voice over as he writes what may be a suicide note before heading out to the pub. He downs a couple of shots, and presumably because the kebab shop is shut, heads outside to eat his rifle.

He’s about to end the film early when some howling makes him think twice - huge mistake! He heads for home the next day but his flight is of the no frills variety - the fare doesn’t even include a proper landing! Before the plane goes down he pisses off a friendly workmate so we know he’s not exactly a people person, well for now at least.

The plane goes down in the wilderness with only half a dozen survivors who include both Liam and the man he had words with - awkward! The guys gather up the salvable stuff and once we establish Liam’s gun is wrecked we meet the bad guys in the form of a pack of mostly CGI wolves. These guys aren’t after dinner, they only want to assert their authority over these interlopers. Liam assumes control and given his wolfy knowledge the rest fall in line despite the normal grumbles.

What follows is what you’d expect in the form of the group being relentlessly whittled down by the lupine louts. There are some slight deviations to the ‘Ten Little Indians’ format but as you’d probably guess we end up with Liam and one cannon fodder guy and a showdown with the marauding pack.

I quite liked ‘The Grey’ but I felt it was writing a smart cheque that its script couldn’t cash. The attempt to make Liam deep and thoughtful failed despite the constant call-backs to his wife who may have left him or is dead. There was a lot of spiritual stuff going on throughout with a couple of near death workers experiencing visions of what they loved most.

This would suggest we are delving into the realms of metaphor or allegory but I’m not buying. You could argue that they were all dead from the off and it was how they met their fate and faced it was what mattered. Indeed some of the guys don’t fall prey to the wolves with the weather and a direct lift from ‘Sometimes a Great Notion’ taking care of two of them.

The tension never really scaled the heights I expected with the attacks too far apart and too much time spent jabbering on about the meaning of life. If I wanted my mind expanded I’d gets some LSD - what you want in a Liam Neeson survival picture is some man on wolf action.

I did like a few scenes especially early on, when the darkness was lit up by more and more wolf eyes. At this point the guys knew they were screwed and that kind of fed into their approaches going forward. The ensemble cast mostly of lesser known actors did well and each got a decent dispatch.

The finale was kept enigmatic with a post credit snippet giving us a clue. I don’t always need a definite conclusion, and a helicopter showing up to save the day may have been stretching it, but something less inconclusive may have been more satisfying.

The film is worth a look but at two hours it does plod at some points and I really needed more bang sticks for my bucks if I was going to rate it higher.

THE Tag Line :  No Result - Going to Extra Time 70%