Good concept, poorly executed.

When a movie has you begging for it to end not even half way through it's pure crap. We've all seen this movie and this characters millions of times, nothing new in it. Don't waste your time.

There is, somehow, an interesting story here, as well as some good acting. There are also some good scenes

Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

Sprawling adventure detailing the obsessive search for a crashed plane including spectacular scenarios , impressive images and maintains a fair degree of intrigue . Selfish and shady Chris Teller (a young Robert Wagner) pressures his older brother (snowy hair Spencer Tracy), a retired climber, to accompany him on a treacherous Alpine climb to loot the bodies of plane crash victims . As they set out to inspect an inter-continental routed aircraft that crashed in the French Alps . Suffering experiences in climbing the peak , it results to be evident that one brother intends to loot , while the other designs to save whatever he can .Wonderfully photographed story dealing with greed and selflessness . Interesting screenplay by Ranald MacDougall , being faithfully based on the novel by Henry Troyat . Top-notch Spencer Tracy as an expert climber who attempts to care his younger brother , as usual , he displays a quiet dignity . Acceptable acting by Robert Wagner as an ambitious young with a ruthless charm . Beautiful Swiss Alps scenery falls to partially compensate for several dreary lapses and script's shortcomings , especially the disparity in their ages is disconcerting ; as both protagonists playing brothers, Spencer Tracy was 30 years older than Robert Wagner in real life ; Tracy previously portrayed Wagner's father in the western Broken lance . Very good support cast playing brief interpretations , such as Claire Trevor as Marie , William Demarest as Father Belacchi , Richard Arlen as Rivial , E.G. Marshall as Solange and gorgeous Anna Kashfi film debut as Hindu Girl . Very real climbing images as well as perfectly staged scenes , being marvelously photographed by Franz Planer , he fills the screen with excitement and suspense. The motion picture was professionally directed by Edward Dmytryck .Filmmaker Edward , better known for overtly personal movies such as The Caine Mutiny was a craftsman whose career resulted to be interrupted by the activities of the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC), a congressional committee that employed ruthless tactics aimed at rooting out and destroying what it saw as Communist influence in Hollywood . A lifelong political leftist who had been a Communist Party member briefly during World War II, Dmytryk was one of the so-called "Hollywood Ten" who refused to cooperate with HUAC and had their careers disrupted or ruined as a result. The committee threw him in prison for refusing to cooperate, and after having spent several months behind bars , Dmytryk decided to cooperate . Dmytrick's biggest film was ¨The Caine Mutiny¨ , but he also realized another mutiny film titled : ¨Mutiny¨ with Angela Lansbury , Mark Stevens and Patrick Knowles . Edward was an expert on warlike genre as ¨Back to Batan¨ , ¨Battle of Anzio¨ , ¨Young lions¨ and Western as ¨Broken lance¨ , ¨Alvarez Kelly¨ , ¨Warlock¨ among others. Rating : a complete must see , it's recommended for Spencer Tracy and climbing buffs .

Some breathtakingly beautiful Technicolor cinematography is the real star of this moralistic adventure tale of greed, compassion and tragedy. The film starts off interesting, suddenly descends into boredom but ends up on a high note. Average them all together, and you get a film of such different highs and lows that it ranks only average.An airplane crash on the top of a very high mountain peak has presumably killed the passengers flying from India to Paris. A rescue crew has to discontinue plans to get to the site, so young Robert Wagner decides to go there to steal money and valuables from the corpses and the shell of the plane. Determined somehow to stop him, his (much) older brother (Spencer Tracy) goes with him. The middle of the film focuses on the trek up the mountain and is so quiet with only infrequent dialog and sounds of the wind that it is rather difficult to remain awake. But once they reach the site, that's where everything explodes, making the dragging section of the film worth suffering through. Afterall, no matter how pretty snow can be, you get tired of looking at it, whether its on the movie screen or cluttering up your driveway.Spencer Tracy was still one of the hottest actors around in the 1950's even though he was in his mid 50's. Time and lifestyle choices made him appear to be a decade older than he was, even if he was still vibrant in his energy. He plays the character as world weary and possibly with some mental deficiencies, yet still physically strong and morally sound. But there is no way that he could be Robert Wagner's older brother. The thirty year difference between them appears to be more as Wagner looks more in his late 20's than mid 30's. Having just played a psychopathic villain in "A Kiss Before Dying", he adds an amoral one with this character, and it is fascinating to watch him being destroyed by his greed. So performance wise, this film is a triumph, but in structure, it is weak.Veteran actors Claire Trevor and William Demarest have small roles to add local color to the people at the foot of the mountain. I wanted to see more of Trevor and her character's devoted friendship to Tracy. So I must call this film a missed opportunity with artistic flair that lacks in an interesting narrative.

The casting decisions in "The Mountain" was insane--even by Hollywood standards of the 1950s. After all, Spencer Tracy and Robert Wagner are cast as brothers--and their age difference is 30 years! And, frankly, at this point in his life, Tracy looked significantly older than 56--probably due, in part, to his heavy drinking. On top of that, the film is based in the Alps--yet no one sounds French, German or Italian--just American. For me, all this really took me out of the experience and overwhelmed everything else in the film--both the good and the bad."The Mountain" begins with a plane crashing into a mountain in Europe. A group of mountain climbers have volunteered to climb to the summit to look for survivors, but the job looks almost impossible. After all, it's getting late in the year and the mountain has claimed lives over the years. One climber who isn't about to climb is a guy played by Tracy. He is a VERY experienced climber but has given up the sport because he KNOWS he'll die if he keeps climbing--as he nearly lost his life the last time he climbed this mountain. Soon, the rescue party returns--their leader is dead and they don't believe it's possible to make it. So far, so good. However, inexplicably, Wagner insists he'll go up the mountain alone (even though he's NOT an experienced climber) because he wants to rob the dead. Even more inexplicable is that Tracy agrees to go along--even though he's horrified by his brother's callousness. His intention is just to keep the younger sibling from getting himself killed. What happens next? See the film.I thought as I watched the film that although Spencer Tracy looked way too old for the part that he did a nice job. As for Wagner, however, he didn't have much chance in this film. First, he was acting against one of the ages best actors. Second, his character was about as one-dimensional as Snidely Whiplash or Simon Legree!! He was ridiculously written--and his character sure went to a lot of trouble just to steel. He could have easily committed crimes at sea level, instead! When the film began, I was very impressed. The camera-work was great--with incredibly vivid colors and a scope that was just lovely. And, many times during the film, I marveled at the way the director and his crew were able to make it appear as if Wagner and Tracy really were climbing in the mountains. Too bad, then, that the writing and casting was so dumb that all the great looks of the film were in vain. Overall, a time-passer that should have been much better.FYI--Something you might want to look for if you like spotting goofs is Tracy's hands. In a VERY shocking and exciting scene, his hands are horribly torn apart by a rope. His brother falls and Tracy's only recourse is to grab the rope and hold on for dear life--as you see blood pouring off his torn hands. It's a VERY effective scene. Yet, shortly after, his hands are perfect--not a trace of a wound that should have taken weeks to heal. And, looking at the accident, you'd assume he'd always be seriously scarred by this!! However, at the very end, his hands are all bandaged! Talk about lousy continuity.

I watched this old movie on DVD in 2012.A plane crashed on a mountain in the winter. It was too hard to climb so rescue attempt was halted. A man who lived nearby came up with the idea to climb the mountain to the crash site to rob the plane. His brother happened to be a retired rock climber, so he made him go along to help. When they reached the crash site, they found a surviver and things changed.The story is OK, not terribly exciting, but interesting enough that I watched it to the end. The main attraction is the rock climbing scenes. Many are done on a prop mountain with a mountain scene projected in the background. Sometimes you can see the prop moves against the background. But not bad for a 1956 effect.When the man suffers a rope burn trying to brake his brother's fall, it's because he wasn't using the rope correctly. So if this is to elicit sympathy for the rock climber, it didn't. It only showed he was not a good rock climber.BTW it's interesting to see the climbing gear in 1956 era. There's no harness or cams. Otherwise it's similar to present time.