Track of the Cat [DVD]

The novel written by Walter Van Tilburg Clark, upon which this film is based is a pretty good one. Unfortunately, as is so often the case, the film adaption falls short. The western genre is not, with a few exceptions like "Invitation to a Gunfighter", the right arena for a more theatrically grounded film. Most of the scenes take place on the Bridges ranch, amongst lots of surreal fake snow. At the ranch there is a lot of speechifying from the disfunctional and fractured Bridges family, whilst Robert Mitchum plods around the snowy wastes in what looks to be a furry Fresian cow coat. Pa Bridges is played by Philip Tonge as a sort of annoying sozzled thespian. Beulah Bondi plays the sour faced, think bulldog chewing a wasp, bible thumping matriarch. Mitchum plays the sharp tongued middle brother, whilst Tab Hunter plays the dominated younger brother. Unfortunately the talky hot air scuppers any chance of a good action movie. After a while you don't really care what happens to any of the characters. By the end I was rather hoping that the "Painter" (cougar) would eat them all, and put us out of our misery.

I think there was meant to be some sort of allegory going on here between the black painter and the unhappy family. When the painter kills cattle on the ranch Mitchum and his brother set out after the beast across the snowy landscape, which provides the only real highlight in an otherwise very dull film. Mitchum then has a very odd experience at the end of the film which comes out of the blue. All a bit strange, but you will have to watch it to see what I mean! The film, which was unsurprisingly not a success, was produced by John Wayne and Robert Fellows for the big mans own Batjac production company. The film was long withheld by Wayne's eldest son Michael who inherited the company, but when he died his widow negotiated a deal. It has been given the full treatment, which many more deserving vehicles have never had. There are informative documentaries about the author Walter Van Tilburg Clark and director William "Wild Bill" Wellman, that contain contributions from Mitchum and Hunter. Sadly the film itself is a very dull and pedestrian affair. Still at least it is an improvement on the last western I watched!

We are up in the snowy mountains near Aspen, we are in the company of the brooding and feuding Bridges family. Their inner fighting is not the only thing blighting their lives, a panther is on the loose and as it kills all in its way, it becomes evident that it's also symbolising something deep and foreboding.

Track Of The Cat is directed by the highly accomplished William A Wellman and adapted by A.I. Bezzerides from the novel written by Walter Van Tilburg Clark. Hauntingly eerie and dripping with a sense of unease, it's however more triumphant as a technical piece than it is a story driven one. Wellman had long wanted to make a colour film while only working from a black and white palette, he does it here and in my humble opinion the result is gorgeous. With William H. Clothier's CinemaScope cinematography brilliantly bringing the Mount Rainier location to life {the only way to watch this is in widescreen}. All they needed was snowy weather, and they got it, and then some! With an interesting point of reference to the weather being that lead man Robert Mitchum {Curt Bridges} stated it was the hardest shoot he ever worked on. Some scenes are truly magnificent, atmosphere drips across the sparse snowy ground, with dark trees seemingly waiting to attack the small framed actors, a burial sequence viewed from the POV of the dead is sumptuous, in short the picture looks gorgeous, but what of its core story and acting heart?

Frankly the story is guilty of being over talky, whilst we marvel at the surrounds and buy into the sense of dread that hovers throughout, we are subjected to what can only be described as over written waffle. I actually wish I had read the novel prior to viewing it now. The extension of talk would have been easily forgivable if the pay off via the panther itself was impacting, but sadly we are robbed of a crescendo ending, something Wellman would later say was an error of judgement {he is rumoured to have disowned the film at one point}. Of the cast, Mitchum is good, moody and bully like, watch as he baits Diana Lynn {poor} as Gwen Williams, while William Hopper puts in a fine turn as Arthur Bridges. Of the rest, well they are solid enough, tho Carl 'Alfalfa' Switzer as a very aged portentous Indian raises an unintentional laugh. After plodding around like a decrepit old crippled specimen throughout the picture, he suddenly turns into an Olympic 100 meters champion at the film's finale! Yes it's safe to say that Track Of The Cat is a very odd picture indeed. 6/10

William Wellman's long unavailable Track of the Cat finally makes it to DVD in a good but not exceptional widescreen transfer. Sadly, it proves to be one of those films better remembered than seen, failing to live up to fond memory and revealing itself to be an ambitious but largely unsuccessful experiment. William Clothier's Scope "black and white" color cinematography is largely successful, especially in the surprisingly few location scenes, but the art direction on the all-too obviously artificial studio sets makes it feel like two distinctly different movies: a stagebound pseudo Eugene O'Neill drama about a house of secrets torn apart by a long day's journey into light and an assembly of second-unit footage of Robert Mitchum adrift in a snowy landscape as his bravado and ego break down in the face of an unseen enemy (in this case a deadly "painter") and hostile elements. Unfortunately we get far more of the homestead theatrics than the tracking, and there's none of the menace and dripping dread so prevalent in the novel.

It's not exactly a bad film, and once you get past the wildly overlong and stagey opening 22 minutes it picks up steam, but it's hard to shake the feeling of a missed opportunity here. Mitchum, Tab Hunter and Teresa Wright all offer good performances, but Val Lewton or Charles Laughton could have made so much more of it.