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Track of the Cat (1954)
Rate:
2
Viewed:
3/24
3/24:
Track of the Cat is an example of false advertising.
Because of the DVD cover, I thought the movie was going to be a man-vs-nature story, but it's hardly that. Worse is the first
twenty-minutes of the brothers getting excited about killing the black panther so many times that I thought it's
what's going to happen next.
Instead, I've been fooled big, big, big time. The movie is a snoozefest about a family of idiots. There are three
brothers, and two of them die in the most boneheaded way. The tale goes back and forth a lot: ten to fifteen minutes
of melodrama at the fake house that's set on a sound stage and one minute of Robert Mitchum out in the cold for real.
Finally, Robert Mitchum is sprung into action, but he plays the worst hunter who ever lived. Hence, he's killed
just like that. So much for his character's big talk at the beginning which led me to believe he knew what he was doing.
The idea of anyone finding his body in the middle of nowhere is ludicrous, but Tab Hunter's character manages to accomplish it
without a problem. I love the highlight when Robert Mitchum had a book of Keats' poems on hand but used it to build a fire.
As a matter of fact, Track of the Cat isn't Robert Mitchum's but Tab Hunter's movie. He's an awful actor who has only
one expression throughout: a pissed-off look. I'm surprised his character was able to dig a six-foot hole in the middle of
the winter when the ground was supposed to be frozen solid. Plus, his pants are pristinely clean which means he did no
digging. His character gets to kill the black panther, which is never shown in the film, as if it's to serve a huge dish of
metaphor to say this boy had finally become a man. Ridiculous.
By the way, you won't believe it, but this is true. The fake Indian is played by a white man, and the actor is none other
than Carl "Alfalfa" Switzer of The Little Rascals fame. Anyway, no matter what everybody says,
there's no such thing as a black panther! Not in the United States anyway. It's probably a mountain lion.
All in all, had it been just Robert Mitchum tracking the black panther the entire time, Track of the Cat would be
infinitely better.