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Wonderfully offbeat film!

Too many fans seem to be blown away

Am I Missing Something?

What a freaking movie. So many twists and turns. Absolutely intense from start to finish.

The White Tower (1950)The short advice here is to read this review and skip the movie. It's almost all a mountainclimbing adventure with so-so realism, and so-so acting and script.Even on its release, five years after the defeat of the Nazis, it must have seemed a bit stretched. The big message here is simple—there are still some bad Nazis out there, but the really cute female ones are eligible for marriage. I'm serious.Glenn Ford is the highlight here. I've never seen him more at ease and charming, even though he has little to do. Or maybe that's why. He's a tagalong for this harrowing mountain ascent, and he jokes and seems only half interested in it all. Except for the eager Germanic blonde who really must conquer the mountain, since her father had died trying years ago. She represent the hearty German purity of many of the ordinary people (German, Swiss, Austrian), interested in loving nature and loving life in the process.In the climbing party are a range of types, all of them stereotypes though actually none of them are stupidly exaggerated (except maybe the German who is hale and confident in an arrogant way). Most mysterious among them, from a movie-lover's point of view, is Claude Rains, who does and says almost nothing in the movie. I expected eventually to have him break out into a meaningful scene, and in fact that's one reason I kept watching.So this ship of fools on foot and with ropes makes its way up the steep and sometimes snowy mountain. It's super windy and cold but they seem pretty comfy in ordinary clothes, even sleeping without sleeping bags. Well, whatever works! But it's silly. There are some rock climbing maneuvers that will send shivers down even novice spines, but it's clear after awhile it's not really about the mountain or the climbing.The romance does bud, of course, and there is a predictable ending, which is kind of the resolution to Europe all in one simple swoop. Well, there you have it! What an awful simplifying mess. Is it horrible? Not quite. It has good intentions. It feels honest and much of the acting is at least sincere, too, if not inspired. But, really, your time is better spent elsewhere unless there is some detail here that will suck you in.My excuse? I didn't read any reviews beforehand. Or I could say, "Because it was there."

It's a suspenseful premise—scaling a killer peak. The trouble is that the suspense doesn't really gel until the final few minutes. In the meantime, Valli and Ford get romantically acquainted in several over-long scenes that sap the pace. Technically, the movie combines real mountains (French Alps) with sound stage mountains in pretty effective fashion, certainly better than most process shots of the period. And that location photography of the French Alps produces some stunning shots of gorgeous alpine valleys, which, I suspect, is the real star of the movie.The plot motivation has Valli paying tribute to her dead father by scaling the White Tower. Unfortunately, she takes along a mixed bag of male support that's none too persuasive, including a 61-year old Claude Rains and a 56-year old Cedric Hardwicke, along with a youthful Ford who nevertheless treats the project like a walk-in-the-park. Remember, this is supposed to be a peak never before climbed, and she's a girl with a mission. Nonetheless, some of the dangling-from-rocks scenes amount to good cinema. I just wish someone had told Ford or the director that you don't mountaineer without gloves, especially in snow.The story itself shifts gears abruptly in the final few minutes when WWII is refought on a tense snow bank. Actually, Ford should have suspected Bridges' politics when he first saw that Afrika Korps campaign cap. Instead, he has to prove the advantages of a cooperative ethic (democracy) over Bridges' superman ethic; at the same time, I like the movie's surprisingly unconventional climax, which manages to reinforce Ford's ethic. Anyway, the film is spotty, at best, but those scenic shots do compensate for a lot.

I was fortunate enough to see it in the 1950-51 time period in color. The heroine played by "Valli" (who used only that one name that I knew of at that time) wore tight sweaters, and was at least as spectacular as the mountain they were going to climb. The story stayed fairly close to the book. One line that we used for quite a while after that was "To rest is not to conquer", said by the "villain" when they stopped en route to the mountain. After all of these years, I was rereading the book for the umpteenth time, and thought it might be fun to see the movie again. It seems to be out of print. For a complete description of the plot and the characters go to "RKO movies", and look for the title..

About the color anyway. I enjoyed this movie, especially Lloyd Bridges Nazi mountainclimber. But I only saw it in black & white, on video yet! That's right my Turner Home Entertainment copy (out of print apparently) of this film is black & white, and them being the Colorizaion Kings! Go figure.