Spy Hunt

This is a very good spy film with an astonishingly novel story element. Amongst the 'actors' are two ferocious black panthers. They get loose from their cages in a train and spies from both sides are hunting them because of some microfilm concealed in the collar of one of them. Howard Duff plays the stalwart good guy American who was supposed to be transporting the panthers to a zoo. He is not a spy for either side. He meets the alluring Märta Torén amd falls for her. She is the one who concealed the mircrofilm in the panther's collar after drugging the panther. There are various mysterious men who may be goodies or may be baddies, and most of them have hunting rifles. George Sherman directs this caper and makes the most of it. The entire adventure takes place in the Swiss Alps. How many dogs and men will be killed by the panthers? How many will be killed by spies of the other side? This one is certainly different. The acting and production are good, but one may well be a bit more nervous the next time one visits the big cat section of a zoo.

A top secret microfilm is smuggled via a cigarette and a meatball (don't ask!) into the collar of one of a pair of black panthers being transported by "Quain" (Howard Duff) from Europe to the United States. When their train is derailed and the panthers escape, "Quain" and his newly found journalist pal "Catherine" (Märta Torén) - whom we know to be not quite all she seems - soon find themselves at a local mountain hotel where the prospects of a panther hunt attract both the army and a few colonial-types who fancy a bit of a big game hunt. The arrival of "Paradou" (Robert Douglas) reinforces the threat to the beasts and to anyone who gets in the way of those malevolently determined to secure this (pretty robust) little document. What now ensues doesn't auger very well for these lithe and beautiful creatures, nor for "Quain" and "Catherine" either unless they can keep alert and stay one step ahead of their rivals. The beginning of this is quite fun, the middle portion quite intriguing, but the concluding third of the film is all just a little bit too formulaic. The presence of Douglas does little to enhance any sense of jeopardy, but he does always manage to exude a degree of nastiness and that compensates a little before the denouement. The production is rudimentary - lots of fairly obvious green-screen effects that suggest they never left California, but in the end it's a watchable, amiable, crime thriller that passes seventy-five minutes effortlessly enough.

The story is very predictable but everything is well done so 74 minutes pass very quickly. Especially since there are some very good actors, all of them, Märta Torén, Howard Duff, Philip Friend, Robert Douglas, Philip Dorn, Walter Slezak, Otto Waldis, etc. Plus, no joke, there are also two dogs that play the role of followers very well. And, even better, two black panthers (if they really exist...), who actually perfectly play their roles to be hunted by everyone, people, all the characters, and the two dogs. I don't know how they managed to film those scenes with the panthers. And, all in the picturesque setting of the mountains of Switzerland.

Howard Duff has picked up a couple of black panthers -- the animal kind -- which he is delivering by train to a circus in Germany. Little does he know that spy Märta Torén has hidden important microfilm in one of their collars. Other spies have gotten wind of this, so they derail the railroad car he is traveling in with the beasts, sending him tumbling down a Swiss mountain. When he awakes, he is in a hotel being tended by the owner, Doctor Walter Slezak, and various characters, all made suspicious by their non-American accents are showing up. Are they there for a newspaper story, or to sketch the beasts, hunt them, or to get the microfilm?

The story of how the term 'maguffin' came to mean something in a film that everyone wants, but it doesn't really matter what it is, is an joke. Two men are traveling in a railroad car. One points to a device the other has. "What's that?" "That's a maguffin." "What's a maguffin." "It's a device for hunting tigers in the Scottish highlands." "There are no tigers in the Scottish highlands." "Then that's never a maguffin."

I'm pretty sure that's the impetus behind the Victor Canning novel this movie is based on. Making them panthers in Switzerland was just intended to obscure the origins. Director George Sherman continues the joke by using he opening music from the Universal Sherlock Holmes series as the opening music to this one, but mostly he handles the story in a straightforward fashion. It's moderately suspenseful. With Philip Friend, Robert Douglas, Philip Dorn, and Kurt Kreuger.

The film is tense and exciting throughout. A panther has a message inserted into a collar around its neck, a message which is of great interest to some questionable characters. The panther escapes its cage and is tracked by Howard Duff, representing the U.S. and by parties who represent the subversives (Ivan Tresault being one of them). The entire film deals with the search and provides some very tense moments. Marta Toren is the beauty who has questionable credentials which have one guessing as to which side she is on. A good film which deserves some recognition.



J.W.