Saturday, March 10, 2012

Movie review - "Harry Black and the Tiger" (1958) **

Stewart Granger is a hunter in India trying to track down a man eating tiger - his old war mate Anthony Steele is a local company official. So far so exciting (an opening sequence involves the tiger eating a woman in a village) but the movie is far more interested in a pseudo-Francis Macomber love triangle between Granger, Steele and Barbara Rush (her accent is explained as being Canadian), and flashbacks to Granger and Steele escaping a POW camp in World War Two which results in Granger losing his leg. This is dull stuff. And Steele and Rush have this small boy who is dubbed into the most agonising, hideous brat I can remember - you beg for the tiger to eat him.

Although this is set when India was independent it feels like a Colonial movie, with Steel running the shop and the natives helpless without Granger (there is a feisty Indian nurse character and an Indian doctor). Granger is helped by I S Johar who is well known for his performance in North West Frontier
 
Steel's role is really emasculating - a coward, useless, idiot... who however is allowed to keep the girl (because of that annoying kid). Location shooting in India helps.

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