William Wellman wanted to make a film out of the novel by Van Tilburg Clark promptly after reading it in 1949; the only problem was the fact, which he realized quite well, that no producer could possibly finance such film. The only thing he could do is wait, and he waited till the opportunity knocked on his door 5 years later with the enormous success of his film The High and the Mighty, which was nominated for several Oscars including third and the last nomination for Wellman himself in the Best Director category.
Inspired by such a success, the film's main star and producer John Wayne swore that now Wellman could film whatever he'd like to, even if it would be a phone book, and that Warner would produce and distribute it. Wellman took the chance, not offering to John Wayne the phone book though, but this story, imposing his conditions, which were basically the filming of it in Cinemascope and in a black and white-colour, which meant to photograph the film with all colours reduced almost to back and white with the exception of some of the key items in the film, such as blue matches, the colour of fire, the colour of Robert Mitchum's coat etc.
The artistic touch of the director and fabulous work of the film's cinematographer resulted in a breathtaking luminous beauty of dark and bright colours which created a visual detachment of the film from the reality, giving it a sort of mysterious aura with the accentuated feeling of threat and emptiness of the scenery which serves as a background on which the internal, almost an infernal emptiness and painful loneliness of the film's main characters are reflected, the characters who are unstoppable in their quest for the black panther, in which all of their mysteries, frustrations and secret sins are incarnated, whom we hear mentioned all the time, whose roar we hear, whose murderous trail we follow along with the film's protagonists but whom we are never really able to see and who finally appears as almost a symbolic figure-representation of the crippled internal world of the characters, which is in fact the only real palpable threat to their pitiful and fearful existence, the very thing from which Robert Mitchum's character is running away finally falling into the cold abyss of nothingness while the other characters remain in the burning fire of their troubled and aimless lives as seen from the grave point of view in the film's final sequence, which represents the unavoidable not-too-soon-to-come end for them.
Beginning with the snow, coming through the fire, the film leaves us where it has begun lost in an enormous threatening emptiness of the landscape still following the mysterious trail of an equally mysterious cat in the never resolved quest for outer discovery of something that has a rather inner nature. 8/10
Inspired by such a success, the film's main star and producer John Wayne swore that now Wellman could film whatever he'd like to, even if it would be a phone book, and that Warner would produce and distribute it. Wellman took the chance, not offering to John Wayne the phone book though, but this story, imposing his conditions, which were basically the filming of it in Cinemascope and in a black and white-colour, which meant to photograph the film with all colours reduced almost to back and white with the exception of some of the key items in the film, such as blue matches, the colour of fire, the colour of Robert Mitchum's coat etc.
The artistic touch of the director and fabulous work of the film's cinematographer resulted in a breathtaking luminous beauty of dark and bright colours which created a visual detachment of the film from the reality, giving it a sort of mysterious aura with the accentuated feeling of threat and emptiness of the scenery which serves as a background on which the internal, almost an infernal emptiness and painful loneliness of the film's main characters are reflected, the characters who are unstoppable in their quest for the black panther, in which all of their mysteries, frustrations and secret sins are incarnated, whom we hear mentioned all the time, whose roar we hear, whose murderous trail we follow along with the film's protagonists but whom we are never really able to see and who finally appears as almost a symbolic figure-representation of the crippled internal world of the characters, which is in fact the only real palpable threat to their pitiful and fearful existence, the very thing from which Robert Mitchum's character is running away finally falling into the cold abyss of nothingness while the other characters remain in the burning fire of their troubled and aimless lives as seen from the grave point of view in the film's final sequence, which represents the unavoidable not-too-soon-to-come end for them.
Beginning with the snow, coming through the fire, the film leaves us where it has begun lost in an enormous threatening emptiness of the landscape still following the mysterious trail of an equally mysterious cat in the never resolved quest for outer discovery of something that has a rather inner nature. 8/10