The White Tower *** (1950, Glenn Ford, Alida Valli, Claude Rains, Oscar Homolka, Cedric Hardwicke, Lloyd Bridges) – Classic Movie Review 10,753

Director Ted Tetzlaff’s 1950 The White Tower is a thrilling and intelligent mountain-climbing melodrama with an exciting cast and plenty of sub-text meaning about six people risking their lives to scale an unclimbed Matterhorn-like mountain in the Swiss Alps. It is written by Paul Jarrico, based on James Ramsey Ullman’s novel.

Director Tetzlaff makes you care about the lives and loves of the various characters played by Glenn Ford, Claude Rains, Alida Valli, Cedric Hardwicke, Lloyd Bridges and particularly Oscar Homolka, who is outstanding as Andreas.

Valli plays Carla Alton, a woman obsessed with climbing The White Tower, the mountain that claimed her father’s life, and so gathers together the group members, who all have their own reasons for joining the climb.

This is good second-unit stunt work at Mont Blanc, while the stars look down from cotton-wool and cardboard peaks in the RKO studios. The White Tower is a well-crafted film complete with excellent cinematography in beautiful Technicolor from Ray Rennahan and score by Roy Webb.

Also in the cast are June Clayworth, Lotte Stein, Fred Essler, and Edit Angold.

The mountain set was built at RKO-Pathé Studios, 9336 Washington Blvd, Culver City, California. The exterior filming Locations were at the Alps, Haute-Savoie, France.

The White Tower is directed by Ted Tetzlaff, runs 98 minutes, is made by RKO Radio Pictures, is released by RKO Radio Pictures (1950) (US), is written by Paul Jarrico, based on James Ramsey Ullman’s novel, is shot in Technicolor by Ray Rennahan, is produced by Sid Rogell, is scored by Roy Webb and Constantin Bakaleinikoff (musical director), and designed by Albert S D’Agostino and Ralph Berger.

It was released by Odeon Entertainment (2012) (UK) (DVD) and still shows on UK TV: Movies4Men (2014) (UK) (TV) and BBC Two (2016) (UK) (TV).

© Derek Winnert 2021 Classic Movie Review 10,753

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