Harry Black and the Tiger

This is definitely one of Stewart Granger's better films following his departure from MGM. Ostensibly about the hunt for a man-eating tiger this is really about two people who, in an ideal world should be together but are not destined to be so. The best scenes by far are those between Granger and Barbara Rush. When they meet again she is married with a son but the chemistry is still there....... The hunt sequences are well-handled and there is a fine score by Clifton Parker. Granger is excellent, Anthony Steel is suitably stolid and I.S.Johar basically plays the same part he was to play in 'North West Frontier' the following year. The film really belongs however to the marvellous Barbara Rush. Both Granger and director Hugo Fregonese were Hollywood 'exiles' who were obliged to seek work in Europe, with decidedly mixed results! Although Granger was disparaging about most of his films he should not have been too unhappy with this one. The next time he was to play a white hunter was in 'The Last Safari' opposite someone named Kaz Garas. The less said about that one the better!

Part Snows Of Kilimanjaro, part Moby Dick, Harry Black And The Tiger will never attain the literary ranks of those Hemingway and Melville classics. Still the book turned into a good movie with Stewart Granger giving a good performance in his first film after he was loose from his MGM Hollywood contract.

There's a tiger on the prowl in a remote corner of India and the government has contracted white hunter Stewart Granger for the job of killing it. There's not much you can do with big cats once they've gotten an appetite for human flesh. But the job gets personal with Granger when he discovers the tiger has chosen for its hunting grounds, the vicinity of a tea plantation run by Anthony Steel and his wife Barbara Rush who's always had a thing for Granger in any event.

There are some flashback sequences telling how the three main players have arrived to the point they are now. Steel did not go through with his part of an escape plan during World War II and as a result Granger lost a leg. And both are in love with Rush, but Granger bows out and now they're thrown together again.

Steel was weak during the war, but now Granger questions his own fitness for the job especially after getting mauled by the tiger. Still he has developed his own Ahab like fixation on the beast.

I have to say Stewart Granger sure looks the part, a carryover when he scored such a big hit in King Solomon's Mines. Later on he did a film called The Last Safari in the Sixties and it was hardly a success.

Look for I.S. Johar and Kamala Devi as Granger's guide and his Indian nurse when he is recovering from his encounter with the tiger. Devi has some really sharp observations about what she's around her.

Not the best jungle films, but the Indian cinematography is nice and fans of the leads will be pleased enough.

I won't cover the ground concerning the setting and the main conflict. This movie is about the theme, the importance of ethical standards in a man,the ability to make difficult decisions, personal sacrifices, moral choices, and confront danger with courage. Courage doesn't mean the absence of fear, rather the ability to suck it up when necessary.

Not unlike other movies with similar themes, such as, The Mountain, Zulu, The Ghost and The Darkness, Battle Los Angeles, and The Naked Prey, Harry Black and the Tiger deals with the personal traits inherent in the nature of men, and what separates them from adult males.

There's nothing phony in this story. The characters' true selves and motivations are laid bare like raw nerves. The tension is incredible for those who appreciate the essence of the interactions and inner struggles of the characters. If you think this movie moves too slowly, you don't get it.

This is strictly run of the mill stuff, but it passes the time if anything, filmed in India it has good photography and stars one of my favourite actors stewart granger, he looks like his character in 'king solomon's mines' - alan quatermain, he also has a faithful sidekick called Babu.

The story is about a killer tiger on the loose in a local community and the various problems it causes to its captors.In the film granger's character has a steel leg, he lost his real leg in the war, so we get a few exciting flashbacks of his war experiences which are done nicely, these scenes would have to be the best in the film.

When a tiger takes a penchant for snacking on the locals, it falls to the intrepid "Harry Black" (Stewart Granger) and his sidekick "Bapu" (I. S. Johar) to stop it in it's tracks. Now were that to have been the thrust of the film then it could have been quite a decent adventure movie. As it is, though, it is really only a guise for a rather tepid melodrama that revolves around him and "Christian" (Barbara Rush). She is married to the high-flying "Desmond" (Anthony Steel) and have a young lad "Michael" (Martin Stephens). As the yarn develops, we discover that they have some history and the tin-legged "Black" is turning, increasingly, to the bottle to deal with his frustrations given that she is married to another. Luckily, the tiger is still munching away with impunity and when the young boy might be it's latest meal, there must be renewed focus! Barbara Rush just reminded me of Jean Simmonds the whole time, the young lad was seriously annoying and Steel features only sparingly in what is really just a vehicle for Granger to offer us something of his "Allan Quartermain" from 1950 - when he was on both better form and in better shape. Lots of rather obvious greenscreen - especially when they are driving - and some jungle scenes where you can almost see the cue dots on the studio floor don't help this much, either. Though it is my kind of film, and Granger does have charisma in spades, this is a rather lacklustre romance masquerading as an action film that need only be watched the once, and left me completely in agreement with the tiger!