The Mountain

Tracy shines
I have long awaited this film's conversion to DVD. As a kid I remember so well watching this in black and white on "Saturday Night At The Movies".

The DVD of this film, produced by Olive Films, is a fairly good transfer, although there are some scenes where the color seems to fluctuate...but then again, that may just be a result of the age of the film (well over 50 years). Certainly not enough of a problem to make the movie less enjoyable, although oddly enough, it's the in-studio "mountain climbing" where the color varies the most, not the natural Alps footage. And, considering that much of this movie was actually filmed in the French Alps, well, it's still magnificent Vista Vision photography! And, they do a great job of combining in-studio footage with Alps backgrounds, making this more realistic than many films of its era. Unfortunately, despite being in the Alps and it's snowing...you can't see their breath! Even in Ronald Colman's 1937 film "Lost Horizon" they...

One of my Spencer Tracy all time favorites
This is absolutley one of my favorite all time movies. Spencer Tracy plays an old famous Mountaineer who has retired to his modest home to tend sheep. Then an Airplane crash on a nearby mountaintop changes his life. His young greedy womanizing brother (Played by a very young Robert Wagner) gets him to lead a climb to the crash site.

It's also a good love story. The old man makes some very heart wrenching decisions.

The climbing scenes are very authentic for mid-1900 style climbing styles and I believe this is Spencer's finest movie. Some of the others actors aren't quite as good but I watch the movie at least once a year on VHS to rejuvenate me.

Bad audio hum
Video looks great but audio has very bad hum . I thought there was a diesel truck idling outside in the street !

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