Track of the Cat (Blu-ray Review)
- Review Date: Sep 05, 2025
- Format: Blu-ray Disc
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Director
William A. WellmanRelease Date(s)
1954 (July 25, 2025)Studio(s)
Wayne/Fellows Productions/Warner Bros. (Imprint Films/Via Vision Entertainment)- Film/Program Grade: B-
- Video Grade: B-
- Audio Grade: A-
- Extras Grade: B+
Review
[Editor’s Note: This is a Region Free Australian Blu-ray import.]
or, The Pant’er Cometh
One of the strangest Hollywood-made Westerns ever, William Wellman’s Track of the Cat, starring Robert Mitchum, is nearly as stylized as Charles Laughton’s brilliant The Night of the Hunter, which Mitchum headlined the following year. Shot in early CinemaScope (2.55:1 aspect ratio) as “a color film in black-and-white,” Track of the Cat certainly looks unusual, but the end result is dramatically turgid, clumsy, at times bizarre and ultimately unsatisfying.
Adapted from the same-named novel by Walter Van Tilburg Clark, whose The Ox-Bow Incident Wellman had marvelously adapted into a film in 1943, Track of the Cat is set in turn of the century Northern California, on a remote mountain cattle ranch in the middle of a harsh winter. The Bridges family is awoken by the sounds of an enormous panther killing their livestock. Eldest brother Arthur (William Hopper) and middle brother Curt (Mitchum), who through bullying, baiting, and badgering effectively controls the ranch and its finances, set out to kill the elusive cat.
Though the middle of the night, the rest of squabbling family stay up awaiting their return. Bitchy Ma (Beulah Bondi) is a sanctimonious, manipulative religious bigot; assertiveness from any of the others she denounces as blasphemy. Her husband (Philip Tonge) is a hopeless alcoholic, in his drunkenness even flirting openly with Gwen Williams (Diana Lynn), ineffectual youngest brother Harold’s (Tab Hunter) fiancée, though Curt flirts with her, too. Only Gwen and Grace (Teresa Wright), the brothers’ bitter, old-maid sibling, seem aware of just how dysfunctional the family is. Joe Sam (Carl “Alfalfa” Switzer), the family’s ancient Indian farmhand, mysteriously comes and goes.
Wellman had long wanted to direct a color film mostly drained of color, with bright, primary hues limited to dramatic or symbolic punctuation. To achieve this, all of the sets and props inside the Bridges home are black, white, or shades of gray, while the actors also wear only monochromatic costumes, the exceptions being Curt’s fire engine red coat and Gwen’s yellow blouse. For exteriors, near-black pine trees contrast the blindingly white heavy snow. (Akira Kurosawa, who similarly experimented with black-and-white and color in High and Low, planned a look similar to Track of the Cat for his tragically aborted 1966-67 film of The Runaway Train, planned for 65/70mm.)
The interior sets and costumes are so extreme they draw attention to themselves, and Wellman, aided and abetted by cinematographer William H. Clothier, shoot the interior scenes in what one can only presume are deliberately awkward, unattractive angles. The house interior set is notably ugly and disorienting, with Wellman and Clothier withholding anything approaching an establishing shot so that the movie audience can get its bearings. Compositions aren’t pleasing; there’s rarely any balance in the framing and the camera always seems too low, too high, or pointed in the wrong direction.
The exteriors play much better, Wellman using the inhospitable environment to good effect, but at least two-thirds of the movie glacierly plays out in that improbable house (and nearby barn).
The dialogue is archly unreal. The almost ethereal cat—never once seen—is described as a “black panther” but which everyone pronounces as “black painter.” I half expected Juano Hernandez to show up in overalls and a couple of cans of Sherwin-Williams. With its cast of bullying and ineffectual types, Track of the Cat is like half-baked Eugene O’Neill—at one point, Pa, three sheets to wind, exclaims, “Oh, if I could shed this garment of flesh!” Did late 19th century cattle ranchers ever talk like that?
Mitchum, Bondi, Wright, and Lynn are reasonably good despite the terrible dialogue, as is William Hopper, here much thinner than his subsequent Perry Mason days, his hair dyed blonde while given a gray-speckled beard. But 25-year-old Carl Switzer, appearing in several Wellman films during this period, is buried under so much “old Indian” makeup that it’s almost an inexpressive mask, and wildly unreal. (One is reminded of the gimmicky “star” cameos in John Huston’s The List of Adrian Messenger.) The part might have come off better in the hands of an age-appropriate actor like J. Carroll Naish or Victor Jory.
Imprint’s Region-Free Blu-ray of Track of the Cat is a mixed bag. Produced by John Wayne’s pre-Batjac production company, Wayne/Fellows, the film was first released by Warner Bros., but those rights were sold or licensed to Paramount, and somewhere along the line either superior original film elements were lost or one of these parties declined to spend money on a better video master. (This is true of many Batjac-Paramount titles, including the latest Blu-ray release of The High and the Mighty.) Though 1080p and presented in its original 2.55:1 aspect ratio, the film sourced has a lot of damage throughout: scratches, blotchy color, etc. The LPCM 4.0 surround and 2.0 stereo mixes fare much better, aiding Roy Webb’s eerie score while the directional sound effects add some suspense. Optional English subtitles are provided.
Supplements are mostly carried over from the film’s DVD release in the U.S. They include an audio commentary track by the director’s son, William A. Wellman, Jr., actor Tab Hunter, and writer Frank Thompson; a four-part The Making of Track of the Cat; and a 1991 documentary, Robert Mitchum, The Reluctant Star.
A fascinating, frustrating swing-and-a-miss, Track of the Cat is profoundly disappointing but, for first-time viewers, undeniably intriguing.
- Stuart Galbraith IV