Tonight's Movie: Spy Hunt (1950) - A Kino Lorber Blu-ray Review

My latest viewing from the Kino Lorber Dark Side of Cinema sets was SPY HUNT (1950), from Volume XIII.

SPY HUNT proved to be an enjoyable 74-minute postwar suspense film, briskly directed by George Sherman.

An espionage story set in Switzerland, SPY HUNT has a bit of a feel of THE LADY VANISHES (1938), between the alpine setting and train sequences. It's not that good, of course, but then few films are. That said, SPY HUNT is a fun watch I'd previously been unfamiliar with.

As the movie begins, Catherine (Marta Toren, DEPORTED) picks up a cigarette thrown onto the ground at a Milan train station. There's a secret formula rolled into the cigarette.

Catherine then follows an elaborate plan to tuck the formula into the collar of one of a pair of black panthers being taken by train to a Paris zoo, escorted by Roger (Howard Duff), who has no clue about the secret message.

The train is intentionally derailed by other agents in Switzerland; the panthers escape and the injured Roger is taken to a hotel owned by a doctor (Walter Slezak). Several parties, played by Philip Dorn, Philip Friend, and Robert Douglas, then show up at the inn planning to hunt for the panthers.

Who is friend or foe?

It helps that the movie has quite a nice supporting cast; I really liked Friend in BUCCANEER'S GIRL and Douglas in HOMICIDE, and was glad to have them turn up in this. Slezak is fun as the genial "doctor by day, innkeeper by night." The supporting cast also includes Kurt Kreuger and Ivan Triesault.

Duff was a bit of a blank slate in this; he wasn't bad but he also didn't bring much to the character, an innocent bystander to the spy shenanigans who admittedly is lightly sketched by the script. In fact, it's almost surprising how mild-mannered he is, given the circumstances in which he finds himself.

Toren is appropriately mysterious as the spy and seems to have things much more together than Duff's character, though in his defense he has no idea what he's walked into.

The script by George Zuckerman and Leonard Lee was based on the novel PANTHER'S MOON by Victor Canning.

I'm not sure that the main cast went further than Southern California mountains, but a combination of process shots and second unit or stock footage all worked together quite effectively to convey a sense of being in the alps. The black and white photography was by Irving Glassberg.

The Blu-ray print from a new 2K master is quite nice, with a strong soundtrack.

Extras consist of a commentary track by Bryan Reesman and Max Evry along with three trailers for other films available from Kino Lorber.

Look for my reviews of the other films in the set, THE NIGHT RUNNER (1957) and STEP DOWN TO TERROR (1958), at a future date.

Thanks to Kino Lorber for providing a review copy of this Blu-ray collection.

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