The White Tower

Against a daunting Swiss mountain, pit an ill-assorted bunch of climbers: gruff guide (Homolka), diffident Yank (Ford), ex-Hitler Youth member (Bridges), alcoholic writer (Rains), English no-hoper (Hardwicke), and a woman trying to live up to her father's reputation (Valli). Then watch the mountain polarise their characters; the uncommitted find true grit, the weak go to the wall, and blond Teutons who rely on the 'Will to Power' tend to flake off and die. Even the heroine forsakes the summit for true love on the south col, and Glenn Ford becomes as obsessed as he was in Gilda, except that here it's a rock pile rather than Rita Hayworth. Can you take a Freudian Eiger Sanction? Come to that, has there ever been a great mountain movie?