The Mountain

Spencer Tracy was always held up as the pinnacle of natural acting, by the public, the critics and his Hollywood peers. Old enough to have gotten his start in pre-Code gangster pictures, Tracy worked a lot for Fox, and made interesting pictures that were both weird and radical. MGM’s glamour factory then typed him as wholesome, earthy, and possessed of a natural nobility, no matter what sentiment was being peddled — Boys Town,  Captains Courageous,  A Guy Named Joe. Great directors and intelligent, witty screenplays helped make Tracy’s sterling reputation, with pictures like Keeper of the Flame,  Adam’s Rib,  Father of the Bride, and Bad Day at Black Rock. If one believes the accounts in bios of directors like John Sturges, in his declining decade Tracy became difficult to work with, delaying productions by balking and making last-minute demands. But his performances never seemed to suffer.

The Mountain gives Spencer Tracy the chance to portray a perfect specimen of a civilized natural man. None of Tracy’s rumored irascibility shows in this glossy Paramount production. We’re told that he complicated western shoots by refusing to work in the elements, wanting everything action shot doubled or filmed back on Hollywood sets. Yet here he really exerts himself on some Alpine hikes. It’s possible that he really liked this character — and perhaps the beautiful French location, too.

By this time director Edward Dmytryk had done his penance as one of the Hollywood Ten (four months in prison, public recanting and naming of names). He quickly re-established his career, working for independent Stanley Kramer and then the big studios. With The Mountain Dmytryk produced as well. Paramount, writer Ranald MacDougall, Dymytryk and Tracy could see that The Mountain is a genuine un-killable story.

A plane from Calcutta crashes on an alpine peak called Bald Mountain. A formal rescue party ignores the advice of the retired mountaineer Zachary Teller (Tracy), and meets with disaster. But Tracy’s wayward younger brother Chris (Robert Wagner) entreats Zachary to take him up to the wrecked plane, for the purpose of robbing the dead. Chris blames his problems on Zachary and offers no thanks when the older man saves his life. When they reach the plane, Zachary is dismayed when Chris begins taking money and valuables from the corpses around the plane. But then they find a Hindu passenger, (Anna Kashfi) still alive, a beauty in silks and diamond jewelry. Chris wants to leave her to die, so his greedy raid won’t be detected, and he’s willing to kill her to make sure. Zachary can’t control his brother — how can he rescue the Hindu survivor all on his own?

Nobody’s claiming The Mountain as the most profound drama of 1956. But it looks great, plays well and leaves audiences feeling uplifted, as if the pure air above the timber line clarifies everything. Writer Ranald MacDougall (Mildred Pierce,  The Breaking Point) tailors the screenplay to Spencer Tracy’s special skills. Spencer Tracy’s winning performance sells a moral argument as uncomplicated as a Sunday School lesson. Saintly old Zachary thinks nothing bad about anybody He’s as tough as an ox yet blessed with gentle human charity. Zachary. He resists the cutesy advances of widow Marie (Claire Trevor) and uses the same ‘I’m too old’ logic to recuse himself from the first rescue expedition run by officials E. G. Marshall and Richard Arlen.

Zachary could almost be Chris’s grandfather, yet we accept their brotherly conflict. Chris simply lacks Zachary’s inherent decency and ethics. A regular gigolo at the ski lodge, Chris thinks he’s been cheated out of The Good Life he sees around him. He sulks and mopes; whatever Zachary says, Chris responds with something spiteful. He wants to sell their house for quick cash. As much as Zachary tries, Chris Teller just can’t be redeemed. At his best he’s bitterly resentful, and at his worst he’s capable of murder.

The decision to climb together doesn’t quite connect the dots of character logic. Zachary undertakes the ill-advised climb because he can’t let his miserable ingrate brother go alone and die. He decides to lead the way, knowing full well of Chris’s ghoulish graverobbing intentions. We know the mellow old man is not stupid — but we don’t think he has any kind of a plan. Zachary remains somewhat soft-hearted; note that he has a tendency toward endearing babble, a performance art that Tracy overused in some of his later showcase roles. Typical is his salt-of-the-earth Cuban fisherman in The Old Man and the Sea. A natural sage, the old man looks to the sky for guidance and expresses himself in monologues, talking to fish and inanimate objects.

Perhaps the idea is that when Zachary Teller can’t cope with his inner problems, he climbs. After tending sheep for ten years, the challenge of climbing rejuvenates Zachary’s spirit and self-image. Unfortunately, brother Chris’s crooked fixation is unchanged. He eagerly raids the crash site and prevents Zachary from erecting a cross, as it would give away his crime [wouldn’t the looting do the same?]. How did Zachary live with this human insect for 22 years?

Bringing out the best in people.

The movie comes alive and finds its heart when Zachary discovers the solitary crash survivor. Anna Kashfi’s injured woman couldn’t be more helpless or vulnerable. She can’t really move or talk. All we know about this woman is that we want Zachary to save her — it’s the kind of Ultimate Good that generates powerful emotions. Her trusting silence is a trifle convenient . . . it provides Spencer Tracy openings for more endearing monologues. His voice calms and reassures her, but it also lets Zachary express his innate goodness, just as in The Old Man and the Sea. The Mountain could be retitled ‘The Old Man and The Mountain,’ just as Tracy’s later The Devil at 4 O’Clock could be ‘The Old Man and the Volcano.’

Fox contract star Robert Wagner was incredibly good-looking on camera and reasonably likeable, and his superficiality worked well — it’s a good fit for the comic book adventure Prince Valiant. This was Wagner’s second dastardly villain in a row, after his psycho college student in Gerd Oswald’s A Kiss before Dying. As written and performed Chris Teller is almost too rotten to be believed. It is suggested that he is is only reacting to indignities suffered, like being paid off for ‘entertaining ‘ playgirl Barbara Darrow. But Chris’s lack of redeeming qualities preempts our sympathy. Interestingly, Robert Wagner’s more memorable screen roles see him playing supporting creeps that do or don’t redeem themselves: The Hunters,  Harper. His leading men on TV usually have a strong devious or mischievous streak.

The movie kicks off with a fairly impressive plane crash prologue. It is filmed with miniatures, and has a visual look that now might cue jokers to hum the ‘Jaws’ theme parodied in Airplane. The mountain scenery is indeed refreshing in VistaVision. Matte paintings, rear projection, the use of doubles and good studio sets augment the long climbing sequence, which becomes the film’s visual highlight. Viewers that know the early German ‘Berg’ cinema may not be impressed, but we kids readily accepted the convention of ‘in studio’ mountain climbing, as proved by Ted Tetzlaff’s excellent The White Tower (1950).

This is France but everyone avoids accents. As the local priest, William Demarest just flattens his all-American speech pattern a bit. Tracy seems committed to the role — although he’s often doubled, he’s also quite active, on location and on the studio-constructed mountain crags.

After hearing everybody worry and fret about the impossibility of reaching the plane, Zachary brings his beautiful survivor down ‘the other side,’ using a path that is mostly an easy snow slope. We could have used a bit more explanation for this — like maybe, it’s easier to come down over deep snow than go up. When Tracy carries Kashfi in his arms along a sunny forest trail, it’s done with the kind of studio effect that rarely convinces. Whether they used a traveling matte (specialty: John Fulton) or rear projection (specialty: Farciot Edouart) it looks exceptionally good. ^*

The bottom line is that The Mountain still has qualities that will please viewers looking for uncomplicated entertainment and positive values. Whatever misgivings we have vanish when Spencer Tracy commits himself to the rescue of the Hindu woman — Tracy’s face just lights up when he sees her. That compensates for a lot. Anna Kashfi is now known mainly for having been Marlon Brando’s first wife; she may have met him while shooting this picture. Her brief film career saw her performing as Korean (Battle Hymn) and Mexican (Cowboy) and acquitting herself well.

As for good old Robert Wagner, we still see no evidence that his Chris Teller possesses any positive human qualities whatsoever. This picture could have inspired a class action defamation lawsuit, defending callow greedy young punks everywhere.