***SPOILERS*** It's the breathtaking photography that really makes the mountain climbing movie "The White Tower" more then worth watching. As for it's plot it seems to be fighting WII that ended five years earlier all over again in making a Nazi hiding in plain sight as its bad guy. That with one of the climbers Mr. Hein, played the alway likable Llyod Bridges, a die in the wool Nazi even going as far as exposing himself and his ideas about being an Aryan superman to those who suffered under Nazism! It's that non stop motor-mouthing on his part that well may have him suffer serious bodily harm by those around with him who aren't that kindly to his Nazi philosophy and ideas. It's Carla Alten, Alida Vaila, who organized this climb in order to finish the job that her and her father world famous Italian mountain climber Aessaword Alten started before the war. It was Pop's, Mr. Alten, hard luck to go it alone on the dangerous alpine mountain named "The White Tower" when everyone including his daughter gave up and got lost in a snowstorm just before he could make it to the top.
The movie has besides the mountain climbing in it the tensions between Mr. Hein, who's still wearing his German Army Wehrmacht uniform, and the rest of the climbers, five in all, who all especially Carla resent his constantly mouthing off about how great Nazi Germany was and soon will be again. As well his admiration of the greatness of the super Ayan race he compared to, as Mr. Hein calls them, those of low intelligence and peasant stock who are on the clime with him. Mr. Hein overdose his superior Aryan act so much that the American with them former US Army Air Force bombardier Martin Ordway, Glenn Ford, who was anything but interested of going on the climb in the first place, he was only interest in starting up a relationship with Clara, decided to go all the way just to put this arrogant creep in his place. That by Ordway getting to the top of the "White Tower" before he dose.
***SPOILERS*** As the climbers get near to the top of "White Tower" the freezing air as well as constant snowstorms makes them give up the fight or climb. It's the arrogant Aryan Superman Mr. Hein who won't let nothing stand in his way to not only make it to the top of "White Tower" but prove his superiorly to everyone else on the climb! Mr. Hein is also using the climb to fight WWII all over again and, in Hein's sick and deranged mind, win it for Nazi German this time around.
Glenn Ford looked so sleepy and out of it in most of his scenes that I thought that the thin air of the Italian Alps was beginning to affect him. Or he was so board with the part he was playing that he had trouble breathing any life into it. It was the always dependable,in him giving a good performance, Claude Rains as the alcoholic mountain climbing Frenchman suffering from writers or mental bloc Paul LeLambre who really saved the movie. That in his spectacular demise towards the end of the film with LeLambre getting himself dead drunk then tearing up his manuscript about his mountain climbing adventure and setting his camp site on fire. With nothing left to live for, he was by then all out of booze, LeLambre walked into a blinding snowstorm and, his body was never found, was never seen or heard from again!
The movie has besides the mountain climbing in it the tensions between Mr. Hein, who's still wearing his German Army Wehrmacht uniform, and the rest of the climbers, five in all, who all especially Carla resent his constantly mouthing off about how great Nazi Germany was and soon will be again. As well his admiration of the greatness of the super Ayan race he compared to, as Mr. Hein calls them, those of low intelligence and peasant stock who are on the clime with him. Mr. Hein overdose his superior Aryan act so much that the American with them former US Army Air Force bombardier Martin Ordway, Glenn Ford, who was anything but interested of going on the climb in the first place, he was only interest in starting up a relationship with Clara, decided to go all the way just to put this arrogant creep in his place. That by Ordway getting to the top of the "White Tower" before he dose.
***SPOILERS*** As the climbers get near to the top of "White Tower" the freezing air as well as constant snowstorms makes them give up the fight or climb. It's the arrogant Aryan Superman Mr. Hein who won't let nothing stand in his way to not only make it to the top of "White Tower" but prove his superiorly to everyone else on the climb! Mr. Hein is also using the climb to fight WWII all over again and, in Hein's sick and deranged mind, win it for Nazi German this time around.
Glenn Ford looked so sleepy and out of it in most of his scenes that I thought that the thin air of the Italian Alps was beginning to affect him. Or he was so board with the part he was playing that he had trouble breathing any life into it. It was the always dependable,in him giving a good performance, Claude Rains as the alcoholic mountain climbing Frenchman suffering from writers or mental bloc Paul LeLambre who really saved the movie. That in his spectacular demise towards the end of the film with LeLambre getting himself dead drunk then tearing up his manuscript about his mountain climbing adventure and setting his camp site on fire. With nothing left to live for, he was by then all out of booze, LeLambre walked into a blinding snowstorm and, his body was never found, was never seen or heard from again!