Hellen I like the storyline of this show,it attract me so much

Cleveronix A different way of telling a story

Forumrxes Yo, there's no way for me to review this film without saying, take your *insert ethnicity + "ass" here* to see this film,like now. You have to see it in order to know what you're really messing with.

Billy Ollie Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

JohnHowardReid Director: PHIL KARLSON. Screenplay: Morton Grant, Dorothy Yost. Story: Morton Grant. Photographed in Technicolor by W. Howard Greene. Technicolor color consultant: Natalie Kalmus. Film editor: Harvey Manger. Music composed by Paul Sawtell and directed by Irving Friedman. 2nd unit director: Noel Smith. Associate Technicolor color consultant: Francis C. Cugat. Special effects: Roy W. Seawright. Art director: Frank Durlauf. Set decorations: Ben W. Bone, Armor Marlowe. Production manager: James T. Vaughn. Assistant director: Ridgeway Callow. 2nd assistant director: William Nolte. Hair styles: Joan St Oegger, Gwen Van Upp. Make-up: Ern Westmore, Jack Pierce. Sound technician: Victor Appel. Producer: William Moss.William Moss Pictures, Inc. Copyright 19 May 1949 by Pathe Industries, Inc. Released in the U.S.A. through Eagle-Lion, in the U.K. through G.F.D. U.S. release: April 1949. U.K. release: 26 December 1949. Australian release by J. Arthur Rank through British Empire Films, Sydney release at the Capitol: 24 March 1951 (1 week only). Australian length: 7,009 feet (78 minutes). U.S. length: 76 minutes. U.K. length: 6,721 feet (74½ minutes).SYNOPSIS: 1932 — depression and drought in the Rocky Mountain country — and a killer cougar!COMMENT: Eagle-Lion films often enjoyed a perpetual half-life, hanging on through independent exchanges and the punishment of amateur projectionists, until the prints were so patched and shredded they literally fell apart. Very few of the movies in the independents' catalogs boasted any sort of color, let alone Technicolor, the acknowledged king of the rainbow, against which all other systems were regarded as second-rate; so The Big Cat was pretty near top of the popularity poll with schools, clubs and home cinemas that had no access to the output of Hollywood's major studios.Superbly photographed on natural locations in the Rocky Mountain country of Utah, capably directed and acted, "The Big Cat" has enough predictable action to satisfy the average fan. What it doesn't have is an original story. Once the characters are established — and they are a conventional enough lot — it is possible to stay three or four jumps ahead of the plot. But when you're looking at color for the first time on the kitchen wall or the roll-up screen, it's the color that counts — and Duke Greene, a veteran Technicolor cameraman knows his palettes — nothing else really matters.

dougdoepke The movie's a quality outdoor production with engaging characters, solid script, and compelling scenery. So how did they get the cougar to go through his involved paces on apparent cue. The trainer or someone should get special credit since it's the cat's roaming that sparks the plot. Spindly city lad McCallister arrives in Utah high country complete with suitcase and city suit. The question is what to make of him since the native woodsmen are a tough lot, from the men to the boys. But tough as they are, they can't seem to take out the predatory cat that's taking their stock. Turns out that McCallister's related to grouchy Foster, but how he'll manage to fit in with his city ways is the big question. Good thing that sweet little malt-shop Garner's there to flounce her dress at him. I like the way the thoughtful screenplay sets events in Depression era 1930's. Among other things, it explains why McCallister moves from ravaged city to high country unknown.There's lots of outdoor action with no obvious sets. Note how noir director Karlson zeros in with close-ups to catch fleeting emotional moments, especially with Foster. Plus the chest butting between a blustering Foster and Tucker seems authentic as heck. But especially, there's that surprise about two-thirds way through that I sure wasn't expecting. I guess my only gripe amounts to a cougar without claws since Spike the dog is left unbloodied following his many tussles with the big cat. I guess the predator was understandably de-clawed before filming. Anyhow, I hope they gave the two critters a good payday for all their good work.All in all, I can see the movie being produced as a boy's matinée. After all horse and dog movies were very popular during the latter '40's. Nonetheless, the film's quality is really much better than most. In my book, the result happily qualifies as a guys-of-all-ages creation that's as entertaining now as it was in '49.

sol **SPOILERS** With the great depression and a disastrous drought all the people in this little area of Southern Utah needed was a deadly mountain lion on the loose killing their cattle to make them forget their troubles.Having a $150.00 reward, a lot of money back in 1933, on it's head everyone in the area were out to get the deadly feline but with no success because the lion was always one step, or paw, ahead of them. Into the mix comes young Danny Turner, Lon McCallister, from Philidelphia looking for a job at the Tom Egger place. Tom, Preston Foster, sent Danny a letter about three months ago about Danny helping him with his work in the tan bark business but since them Tom's tan bark business went kaput. Since there came on the tan bark market a new and cheaper synthetic tan bark that put poor Tom out of business. Danny shocked at Tom's situation, as well as his own, decides to stay with him and help him gun down the killer mountain lion for the reward money. Money that can give Tom a jump start to fill his orders of tan bark and get him, and Danny, back on his feet again. Meanwhile Tom had been feuding with his neighbor Gil Hawks, Forrest Tucker, for over twenty years a feud that started over Lucy, Gils's, sister, who Tom wanted to marry. The feud got so out of hand that Lucy soon fled east to get away from both her brother Gil and her lover Tom and to keep from ending up dead by getting caught in the crossfire of these two lunatics. In Philidelphia Lucy met the man that she married and with whom had Danny but she and Tom secretly carried a torch for each other .Now with both his parents dead and no work to be found Danny could only go west to Utah and Tom for work and for someone who would treat his as if he were his own son. The fighting in the movie between Tom and Gil is so off-the-wall and outrageous that you wonder how they both survived all that time without ending up dead behind bars or in a loony bin. With guns and axes and chains the two were going at it in what seemed like a crazed daily ritual. The appearance of the killer cat was the only thing that kept the two from really going at it and finishing themselves off for good long before the movie ended. Danny also got the two Hawks boys Jim & Wid, Skip Homeier & Gene Reynolds, mad at him when pretty Doris Cooper, Peggy-Ann Garner, went wild over the young city boy even before she ever laid eyes on him. This showed how desperate Doris was for a normal young man who wasn't part of the crowd that she had to deal with in that part of of state. Trying to track down the mountain lion Tom shoots a buck for food and after Danny, who couldn't bring himself to gun down the buck, dragged it back to Tom's place but forgot to take Tom's 30/30 rifle that he used to track down the panther. With the deadly cougar picking up the scent and then trying to eat the hanging buck carcass Tom foolishly tries to shoot the cat with a .22 rifle. A .22 is useless against a large wild animal like a mountain lion and Tom gets killed by it when it ambushes him . Danny feeling guilty about Tom's death, since he left the gun that would have done in the cat back in the woods, goes out on his own and finds it's lions lair. With the unexpected help of a member of the hated Hawk family, their dog Spike, Danny has it out with and finally finishes off the elusive and deadly killer.

rsoonsa Operating with a limited in number but generally talented group of eight actors, director Phil Karlson, soon to be known for his essays into noir, here creates an engrossing adventure film set in 1933 depression and drought wracked southern Utah, and incorporates many of the elements which later will prove vital to his deserved reputation as an important narrator of urban crime. Residents of a small secluded valley are being tormented by a large mountain lion which, due to a shortage of water, has invaded their region to prey upon livestock, and the bounty for the beast of $150 is coveted by two long-feuding neighbours, one of whom, Tom Eggers (Preston Foster) provides a place to live for a city-bred young man (Lon McCallister), the son of the former love of his host and also the nephew of Eggers' rival, Gil Hawks (Forrest Tucker). The well-crafted scenario includes elements of romance, suspense and humour to the basic plot, and a certain darkness of tone has raised the work above most others of its stamp, with crisp editing (Karlson and Harvey Manger) prevailing, and we enjoy particularly fine performances from Foster and McCallister, with a pleasingly large role for veteran character actor Irving Bacon, a standout as a farmer doubling as a preacher.