Infamousta
brilliant actors, brilliant editing
SeeQuant
Blending excellent reporting and strong storytelling, this is a disturbing film truly stranger than fiction
Teddie Blake
The movie turns out to be a little better than the average. Starting from a romantic formula often seen in the cinema, it ends in the most predictable (and somewhat bland) way.
Leofwine_draca
A good cast occasionally lift the material in this otherwise routine adaptation of a Hammond Innes novel about a group of characters staying in a skiing hut who are involved in a mystery that turns out to be a hunt for hidden Nazi gold. The film suffers from over-obvious and occasionally poor plotting that turns it into a turgid experience at times, so thank goodness the cast elevate it with their performances.Dennis Price headlines the production as an amateur sleuth sent by Robert Newton to find out what's going on at the aforementioned hut. Once there he discovers a bunch of suspicious characters including Guy Middleton, Stanley Holloway, the ubiquitous Herbert Lom, and the lovely Mila Parely. Unfortunately Price's protagonist is so dumb that he goes around openly questioning the suspects and nearly ends up dead as a result. At least it springs to life for the frankly unbelievable climax.
writers_reign
Robert Newton was the selling point here but is woefully underused and after recruiting Dennis Price as a spy at the start he disappears for the major part of the running time leaving the lion's share of the screen to journeyman actors like Price and Guy Middleton. Best of the rest is Herbert Lom, the closest in talent to Newton. It's something of a Boy's Own Paper yarn albeit one with a factual premise; with the end of the war clearly inevitable the Nazis began frantically shipping plunder, in the form of priceless art, gold and even cash, either out of Europe altogether or at least well hidden within Europe and, inevitably there are those who know of it and would like to find it. This is your plot and all you need now is a motley crew to do the searching. Apart from the criminal under use of Newton it's not too hard to take.
malcolmgsw
This is a very strange film.Robert Newton is top billed.However after his appearance in the first scene he does not appear for another hour.During that period very little of interest happens.Then with his reappearance the film comes to life and we get a reason for the happenings,revelations as to the true identities of the main characters and the action that had been missing in the previous hour.It is difficult to understand the way the plot is developed,notwithstanding a view on the way a British film studio operated in the forties.However you do get the feeling that many of the cast were wasted not least Dennis Price.
Spikeopath
Funding the New World Order of the Fourth Reich. Snowbound is directed by David MacDonald and adapted to screenplay by David Evans and Keith Campbell from the novel "The Lonely Skier" written by Hammond Innes. It stars Dennis Price, Mila Parely, Stanley Holloway, Herbert Lom, Robert Newton and Guy Middleton. Music is by Cedric Thorpe Davie and cinematography by Stephen Dade.In short order form the plot basically finds a group of disparate people up in the Italian Alps involved in the search for Nazi treasure hidden somewhere abouts a ski resort. it's a league of nations up in them thar snowy hills, some with deadly motives, others just caught in the crossfire of nefarious plans.The screenplay is a little too tricksy for its own good, with the multiple shifts of the key players identities becoming tiresome in the last quarter of film. That it never gets going fully until late in the play is also an irritant, as is the fact there is a dynamite cast list assembled here that are sadly given one note characters to portray. In fact Newton is so criminally under used the writers and director should have been banished to the Alps as punishment. That said, the set designs, cinematography and a strong turn from Lom, make sure it stays above average as viewing entertainment. While the finale is gripping and features a resolution that's deliciously sly.Marked out by some as an entry in the British Noir pantheon, I'm not willing to suggest it as such myself. Certainly some of Stephen Dade's photography has the requisite noirish tints to it, and it could be argued there's an inevitable feeling of bleakness pervading the narrative that brings it into the film noir realm. As always, film noir is in the eye of the beholder, and to me this is just a better than average drama. Even if it does waste a great cast. 6/10
