The first snow has arrived and a panther has descended from the hills to stalk livestock on the Bridges’ ranch. Domineering middle brother Curt (Robert Mitchum) sets out, sure he’ll find and kill the panther. Elder brother Arthur goes along.
Meanwhile, back at the Bridges home, youngest brother Harold (Tab Hunter) has a visitor, pretty Gwen Williams (Diana Lynn), whom he’d like to marry. She’s welcomed by Harold’s spinster sister Grace (Teresa Wright) and Pa Bridges (Philip Tonge) for finally bringing some life and light into the Bridges home. She’s scorned by Ma Bridges (Beulah Bondi), who thinks she’s a shameful woman, interested in Harold only so she can get her hands on part of the family ranch.
As for Harold, he’d like to build a home for Gwen on the family property, but he’s afraid to ask Curt for his share of the ranch. After all, Curt chased off squatters and turned the ranch into what it is before Harold was old enough to be much help. So he’d prefer to wait for Curt to offer him part of the homestead.
Then Arthur’s body arrives at the ranch, sent home on the back of a horse by Curt while he trudges deeper into the snow-covered hills in search of the panther that killed his brother. That only causes tensions to mount in the Bridges’ household. Ma Bridges is especially distraught. After all, it’s she and Curt who have ruled this family for years. What will happen if he doesn’t return?
Review:
Interesting but not very entertaining film, unless you enjoy watching family members bicker for about two hours. And Robert Mitchum plays the most unlikeable of characters, a man who puts down everyone around him, except his mother, and clearly covets his brother’s new love.
Director William Wellman does serve up a couple of memorable scenes. In one, Gwen is reminded why she loves Harold when he throws seeds to a group of birds foraging for something to live on in the snow-covered ground. In another, Curt rips pages from a book of poetry that once belonged to older brother Arthur and uses them to start a fire. Only it’s quickly extinguished by a chunk a snow that falls from a tree.
The best roles belong to Beulah Bondi as the manipulative mother and Philip Tonge as the drunken dad, who always has another whiskey bottle in hiding somewhere if the women in the Bridges home decide to hide the one from which he’s been drinking.
The film is based on a novel by Walter Van Tilburg Clark. Wellman did much better with his adaption of another Clark novel, the result being “The Ox-Bow Incident” (1943).
Oh, and you won’t recognize him, but that’s Carl Switzer, best known for his role as Alfalfa in the Our Gang films, playing the part of an old Indian named Joe Sam who works on the Bridges ranch and has all sorts of superstitions about a black panther. He was just 26 when he played the part.
Directed by:
William A. Wellman
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
Runtime: 102 min.
Memorable lines:
Ma Bridges: “It’s been a long time since your pa has had a say about anything.”
Ma Bridges, about her husband, as he shaves so he looks nice for Harold’s girlfriend Gwen: “Seventy-one this past summer. You’d think a man that old wouldn’t have enough head left to turn.”
Curt Bridges, about Gwen: “What’s she tryin’ to do? Make a pet out of Kentuck (a horse)? First thing you know, she’ll have all the Bridges tamed.”
Grace Bridges: “The only one she’s interested in taming is Harold.”
Curt: “Shouldn’t have too much trouble there. He’s got about as much spirit as a gelding.”
Ma Bridges, about Arthur: “He was a strange son for your pa and me to have. Like the Lord put something in him that wasn’t in either of us.”
Pa Bridges: “What did you see?”
Ma Bridges: “They (Harold and Gwen) was actin’ up in the shed.”
Pa: “Actin’? Like what?”
Ma: “She was kissin’ him the way no decent woman …”
Pa: “Kissing him? She was kissing him? Hot jiggity, I wish I had seen that. Now you listen to me, old woman. Kissing is what we need around here. Lots of kissing. The more kissing the better. Could use a few myself. Never had enough. Far back as I remember … You with your stingy little purse of a mouth. Did you watch them? Did you learn anything?”
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