The White Tower

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Trailer—The White Tower

The White Tower

Young woman returns to her Swiss hometown and is determined to climb a virgin peak, the infamous "White Tower", which even her mountaineer father could not scale. She recruits a disparate group of men to accompany her, including ne'er-do-well Glenn Ford who has love in his eyes. Screenwriter Paul Jarrico adapted James Ramsey Ullman's novel for the screen, with hardly a trace of good humor but much strenuous character interaction. The RKO production is solid, with a good deal of on-location shooting in saturated Technicolor, but there's nothing charismatic about these people. Driven into danger by different ideals, they're hardly more than stock figures. Some of Ray Rennahan's cinematography is striking (particularly at the beginning), and Roy Webb composed a lovely score, yet this is hardly a classic instance of rugged adventure. ** from ****

I was fortunate enough to see it in the 1950-51 time period in color. The heroine played by "Valli" (who used only that one name that I knew of at that time) wore tight sweaters, and was at least as spectacular as the mountain they were going to climb. The story stayed fairly close to the book. One line that we used for quite a while after that was "To rest is not to conquer", said by the "villain" when they stopped en route to the mountain. After all of these years, I was rereading the book for the umpteenth time, and thought it might be fun to see the movie again. It seems to be out of print. For a complete description of the plot and the characters go to "RKO movies", and look for the title..

An excellent cast go through the motions (generally in an upwards direction, it being a mountaineering film) in pristine Technicolor. As befits a film directed by a former cameraman who went all the way to Mont Blanc to shoot it (well, some of it), it's all ravishing to watch; especially a youthful Alida Valli in her one Technicolor film during her brief spell in Hollywood billed Garbo-style simply as 'Valli'.

Carla's father died years ago trying to be the first to climb to the top of The White Tower, a huge peak in Switzerland. Now years later, she's trying to get together a group to attempt to conquer this peak on behalf of her dead father. So, she assembles a motley group to do just this. I never have understood the casting decisions for films like "The White Tower" and "The Mountain". Older non-athletic actors like Claude Rains, Cedric Hardwicke, Oskar Homolka and Spencer Tracy ("The Mountain") seems ridiculous, as they'd all die the first day of the expedition! This cast made the film seem ludicrous and didn't help to make the film watchable. Despite the odd cast, is it any good? Well, it's okay. Having a better motivation for the ascent might have helped as well as more interesting characters. What did help was the nice cinematography...and the Alps make for a nice backdrop to the story. So, overall it's a mixed bag...one that is at best a pretty time-passer and not much more.

This is one of those movies that is fitting to it's era... Actually, not a bad and personal romance and adventure with odd assortment of characters who each for their own reasons want to climb this 'White Tower' mountain... With a great cast.. Claude Rains, L Bridges, C Hardwick, etc.. but most of all VALLI, a special woman among women.. (also in the 'The Third Man')... I'm a great fan of 'The Third Man' and fell in love with her,.... and seeing Valli again was a real treat.. Great vistas (quite abit of on-location shooting in the French Alps), photography, color.... For those who know what I mean,.. this has a 'kinda' "High and Mighty" feel to it.. One other note germane to that era of film making, the ages to the characters/actors.. all older and more mature than what we're used to today... Chauk one up for the good old days.. ENJOY

Beautiful scenery and intensely colourful Technicolor sets and costumes highlight this mildly interesting mountain-climbing production. The performances feel rather restrained, with none of the actors really fleshing out their characters, and there is a dead-on typical romance to weigh the whole thing even further down. The film can be positively credited however for its attempts to show the motivations behind mountain climbers, although it is still a bit dull either way. The final few scenes are great though: very suspenseful and rather intense, but in the middle section the film tends to sink, amidst a few other minor problems. But those to whom the material appeals will probably get a kick out of it either way, and it certainly is a delight on the visual scope.