NR | 1h 47min | Drama | 1959
For centuries, even experienced mountain climbers considered the Matterhorn so unassailable that the stunning, three-mile-high Swiss alpine mountain remained unconquered.
Then, in 1865, British climber Edward Whymper broke the spell during his eighth attempt, but not without the mountain taking its toll; four in his climbing party died during the descent. This coming-of-age film, “Third Man on the Mountain,” set in the 19th century, fictionalizes that astounding ascent.
A Young Man’s Quest
Son of the late Swiss mountaineer-guide, Josef Matt, the teenage Rudi Matt (James MacArthur) laments that there’s no livelihood lowlier than his; he’s a dishwasher in an alpine tourist hotel. Years ago, Josef died trying to scale the Matterhorn but saved lives in the bargain.
Amateur guide Rudi wants to do what his father couldn’t. His sweetheart, Lizbeth (Janet Munro), and aging ex-guide Teo (Laurence Naismith) believe he has what it takes. Teo even trains the boy in secret.
But the Matterhorn isn’t called the Citadel or killer mountain for nothing; its forbidding slopes have claimed too many lives. Naturally, Rudi’s uncle, guide Franz Lerner (James Donald), and Rudi’s widowed mother forbid him from climbing it.
Things change when world-renowned mountaineer Capt. John Winter (Michael Rennie) publicly thanks Rudi for saving him when he ends up stuck in a nearby gorge. Winter wants to be first to conquer the Citadel, but so does nearly everyone in his climbing party. Worse, reckless Rudi, seeking the elusive breakthrough route to the summit, keeps endangering himself and others.
Winter, Lerner, and Teo try to teach Rudi that it takes more than his strength, skill, and stamina to conquer a mountain. It also takes his father’s patience, perseverance, and poise. Before he knows it, Rudi’s back in the climbing party, the third man on the mountain behind Winter and a veteran guide. But can he conquer the mountainous ego within him before it’s too late?
Eleanore Griffin’s screenplay dramatizes James Ramsey Ullman’s book on this legendary first ascent; Ullman had made a career out of writing about mountaineering and mountain geography.
A Cliffhanger of a Film
With advice from Gaston Rébuffat, the French mountain guide who served as mountain unit director, British cinematographer Harry Waxman captured spectacular climbing shots. The film shows actors and stunt actors rappelling up or down a rock face, swinging from an overhang, or clinging to a precipice.Still, even at that altitude, Waxman ingeniously weaves in a range of long and extreme-long shots, and low and high-angle shots to showcase the magnitude and magnificence of the Alps. One shot from a mountaintop overlooks a carpet of snowy clouds, its wispy edge as if set afire by a furtive sun.
At times, the Matterhorn peak looks like the stony face of some alpine giant. His permafrost neck is twisted as he peers down at the valley below, as clouds whip about him like a flaming white mane, blowing in the wind.
Teo teaches Rudi that being a mountain guide isn’t about bragging or beating others to the top. It’s about leading by example and thinking of others first. To Teo, Josef was the greatest climber because he could go places other men could only dream of. He didn’t die because the mountain was too high, or because he craved conquest or glory, but because he cared more for the men in his charge than he did for himself.
Sheepish, Rudi realizes that in fishing for Winter’s approval, he’d been putting himself and others at risk. When he sets out to master the mountain afresh, Rudi discovers that he may well be on the path to mastering himself.
Winter reassures a contrite Rudi that everyone makes mistakes, as Winter himself did. For all his experience, even he had slipped into a gorge because he was too busy looking up at the mountain to see what was at his own feet.
As the saying by Edmund Hillary goes, “It is not the mountain we conquer, but ourselves.”
