There is always with me a main reason or two for watching any film etc. The most frequent ones being great casts and an appetising concept. My main reason here for seeing 'Footsteps in the Snow' was Veronica Lake, a very underrated actress with a great and immensely promising but too brief prime period who died too young and deserved better projects when her career declined. Without her and my want to see all her films, the film would still be unknown to me.
'Footsteps in the Snow' is her penultimate film and perhaps her most obscure. Managing to track it down online, under a German title, to me it was a long way from unwatchable but it is not hard to see why it's not better known. It is not her very worst film, that will always be the dreadful 'Flesh Feast', but 'Sullivan's Travels', 'This Gun for Hire', 'I Married a Witch' and 'The Blue Dahlia' it most certainly isn't. Lake is the main and only real reason to see 'Footsteps in the Snow', otherwise there is not an awful lot going for it.
Lake doesn't come off too badly, actually think she did very well and thought she gave a very expressive and professional performance that did have moments of iciness but also a lot of authority and with no over-acting like some acting in the over-protective mother type of role can resort to.
Some of the scenery is very nice and authentically wintry. Some of the music is pleasant to listen to and haunting.
Others parts, too many of them, come over as very repetitively scored. Actually found myself very annoyed by the end of the film by the song repeatedly used, a shame because it wasn't too bad a song but would have made far more positive an impact if it was used a lot more subtly. The scenery is also wasted by the very drearily lit and haphazard photography. While Lake is good, Meredith MacRae and Peter Kastner for my tastes were very bland and their chemistry, a crucial element of the film, never ignited.
Moreover, the script tends to be too rambling, too flowery and has too much fat. The direction tends to be too lethargic and disorganised and when the story isn't paper thin and lacking in any kind of substance it is very dull and can be rather odd in atmosphere. The ending agreed really does feel like too much of a disconnect with what comes before and perplexes.
In conclusion, has its moments but pretty weak. Namely for Lake completests. 3/10
