Memorable, crazy movie

A lot of fun.

Watch something else. There are very few redeeming qualities to this film.

This movie feels like it was made purely to piss off people who want good shows

Old-fashioned in the best sense, this mountaineering adventure boasts a stellar cast--Glenn Ford, Alida Valli, Cedric Hardwicke, Claude Rains, Lloyd Bridges, and Oskar Homolka--and a simple premise: a young woman (Valli) returns to the Swiss Alps to conquer the eponymous mountain that claimed her father's life years before. But she has to persuade several other climbers to brave the perilous ascent with her. Each has his own reason for accepting, while the lone American member (Ford), at first tagging along just to spend time with the beautiful Valli, gradually finds a deeper reason of his own.The recent Second World War looms large over the story. Indeed, the White Tower itself is a clear metaphor for it: the three main characters all have something left to prove, and the higher they climb, the more the reveal about themselves, the more fractured the team becomes. It's not as psychologically complex as it sounds, though. You can easily work out who's who and how the relationships are going to develop as the story unfolds.The joys here are the cast, the scenery, several gripping climbing sequences, and a lush score that evokes that aching sense of something lost that's also somehow within reach again...if only love can prevail.Corny, maybe, but if you like old Hollywood and adventure films, this one will work like a charm.

After finding him outstanding in the 1934 Film Noir Crime Without Passion,I decided to keep a look out on TV for movies with Claude Rains. Returning home from a weekend in Birmingham,I took a look at the film page on BBC iPlayer,and found a rare Adventure title co- starring Rains,which led to me climbing the white tower.The plot:After her dad dies trying to climb the mountain, Carla Alton decides that she is going to climb "The White Tower" mountain. Finding her to completely ignore their advice to not climb it, French author Paul Delambre,US pilot Martin Ordway and "ex" Nazi Hein decide to team up and help Alton up the mountain.As they climb up the mountain,the group get caught in an avalanche of their own fatal differences.View on the film:Climbing the mountain in the real Swiss Alps ,director Ted Tetzlaff (cinematographer of Hitchcock's Notorious) & cinematographer Ray Rennahan ice the movie with a great frosty atmosphere,swept up in tightly held shots being covered in mountains of snowflakes.Bringing warmth to the pre-climb with Sid Rogell's light score, Tetzlaff drowns the light in a surprising amount of gloom,where a lone fire is the only sign of life in a virgin snow wilderness.Taking on James Ramsey Ullman's novel,the screenplay by Paul Jarrico cleverly digs its heels into opening up Alton dedication to the memory of her dad,and the uneasy teamwork that sits between the heroic Ordway and "ex" Nazi Hein.Giving the team a cheerful,friendly outlook before the climb, Jarrico gives the shadow of the mountain a surprisingly sharp edge,with its sharp edges leading to an unexpected large number of the group falling to their doom.Toning down his devilish charm, Claude Rains gives a wonderful melancholy performance as Delambre,as Lloyd Bridges gives a great boo-hiss performance as snarling "ex" Nazi Hein.Joined by a rugged Glenn Ford as Ordway,the elegant Alida Valli gives a vivacious performance as Alton,who finds the memory of her dad at the top of the white tower.

I think it is highly significant that this movie was made in 1950, five years after WW II. Underneath the adventure and the romance, it is a story of ethnicity, of history, of the cost of war, of survival under great duress and of the need for cooperation among peoples, if humanity is ever to reach its goal, its peak. The exhausted Englishman, the pathetic philosophical Frenchman, the rigid and angry Nazi, the strong but innocent American, the wise and patient old mountaineer, the girl trying to achieve what her father could not--triumph, that is, peace. It is a plea for selflessness, since the mountain cannot be climbed by one person alone. It is a message that has meaning for every age. The scenery, the casting and the acting are all superb.

Which has lasted the test of time.An odd bunch of people who come together with the goal of climbing the Alpine mountain as in the name of the movie but they make it work.It does not use up to much time getting to know the group letting their stories unfold as the movie story unfolds.Glenn Ford does not have much kit but he seems to scrounge it just when he needs it without ever having to ask.As in most films there is a love story which fits right in with the plot.A canny feel good movie and a pleasant way to spend 98 minutes of anyone's time.