Track of the Cat (1954)

Director:

William A. Wellman

Writers:

A.I. Bezzerides (screenplay)
Walter Van Tilburg Clark (novel)

Release Date:

27 November 1954 (USA)

Genre:

Drama | Western

Tagline:

Human Emotion Stripped Raw!

Plot:

A family saga: In a stunning mountain valley ranch setting near Aspen, complex and dangerous family...

Plot Keywords:

Panther | Ranch | Alcoholic Father | Neighbor | Oedipal Complex

Cast

Robert Mitchum	...	Curt Bridges
Teresa Wright	...	Grace Bridges
Diana Lynn	...	Gwen Williams
Tab Hunter	...	Harold Bridges
Beulah Bondi	...	Ma Bridges
Philip Tonge	...	Pa Bridges
William Hopper	...	Arthur Bridges
Carl 'Alfalfa' Switzer	...	Joe Sam (as Carl Switzer)

Also Known As:

William A. Wellman's Track of the Cat (UK) (complete title) (USA) (complete title)

Runtime:

102 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

2.55 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono (35 mm optical prints) | 4-Track Stereo (35 mm magnetic prints) (RCA Sound Recording)

Certification:

Australia:PG | USA:Approved (MPAA rating: certicate #17120) | Finland:K-16

Filming Locations:

Mount Rainier National Park, Washington, USA

Company:

Warner Bros. Pictures

Trivia:

Average Shot Length = ~10 seconds. Median Shot Length = ~9 seconds.

Movie Connections:

Remake of "Studio One: Track of the Cat (#3.21)" (1951)

The day of the hunter.

A lot of people were disappointed by "track of the cat" .Some expected a western ,hadn't Wellmann made a masterpiece of this kind with "the ox-bow incident"?And more were disappointed by Mitchum's part.

I do think that "track of the cat" is an underrated work;almost unique,it's very hard to compare it with another film.Roughly,it's the story a family under the thumb of a tough guy ,Curt(Mitchum) and his holier-than-thou mother(Bondi).Two members of this family are different:Curd's sister(Wright) who remained a spinster and tries to rebel against the others .She tries to make her younger brother,Harold,marry a girl ,Gwen ,who knows better :Harold is a shy sexually repressed young man who's looked upon as a sissy by Curd.

What's really bewildering is that,after half an hour,Mitchum and the rest of the family go separate ways.He 's on the trail of a wildcat he absolutely wants to kill.While he's away,Gwen tries to urge Harold to leave home ,the unity of the family begins to fragment at the edges.

More than the splendid landscapes where Mitchum dressed in red wanders and lights his fire with the pages of a book of Keats poems(in an almost contemporary work ,Bunuel's "la mort en ce jardin" ,they light a fire with pages of the good book after all!),Arthur's funeral is the highlight of the movie :filmed in "subjective camera" (seen ,so to speak ,thru the dead's eyes) ,it shows the living in front of the gaping hole.Editing is often wonderful and succeeds in connecting the two apparently separate stories.The mystery touch is increased by the old Indian's presence ,who seems to know all the secrets of those hostile mountains.