I like a lot about the movie. Kirk Douglas often picked these very difficult roles where he had to play the slick guy with an evil side to him. It's something that is rarely seen in 50's movies. Kirk Douglas on the other hand played this role more often than not as it forces you to give 100% and he always did. An actor 30 years ahead of his time and constantly carries these older movies that otherwise are full of silliness and mediocre acting as you'd expect. Here the movie remains fairly serious. It never really dives into the typical 50's silliness, weird dialogue, silly plot, and flat acting where nothing makes logical sense. It's a serious story with an overly serious grim ending.
Jan Sterling looks glorious here with a very peculiar blonde look. And she and the other smaller roles are very fine here as they don't have to do too much. Kirk Douglas is in every scene here and carries it all.
Now, the story overall is good. We have Kirk Douglas the journalist make sure that the rescue team that is supposed to save a man stuck in a cave goes the long way in by drilling from the top. It takes days instead of a single day. Meanwhile he writes the story and gets popular and rich as it drags on for days. Jan Sterling wants to divorce the guy stuck in at the mine and date Douglas instead. Basically 2 big city outsiders are egotistical and want everything right now. They want money and big city life and hate being nobodies. The small town folk are overall good, but very gullible and are easily tricked by bad guys. The 50's setting is what makes the movie. The cars, technology, clotches, jobs. The setting makes the movie as the story is overly simple.
I'm not a fan of the ending. The caver just dies at the very end as they don't get to him in time. His wife then runs away to New York as she would have done anyhow. The parents are sad. Douglas dies as he doesn't tend to a stomach wound the wife gave him. I get that bad guys need to die if they do something bad. The old Hollywood code made sure you could always predict all endings. There is nothing deep to the story. I expected the ending and as I got it I felt like it belonged in a short film. I watched a long movie for an ending I already knew would come about if the operation failed - we know Douglas will die too then. I feel let down for sure. There is not much to figure out, no deeper or complicated moral values, no happy ending to tie it all together. It just stops all of a sudden. I liked the movie otherwise, but it's like it didn't dare to go anywhere interesting. We don't even see the cave digger die. So I was constantly wondering if Douglas just lied to people or if it happened. But as the ending continues for another few minutes you sorta get that this is it. Just this lazy outcome. He just died off screen!
I really wanted Douglas to grow from the experience. To get somewhere interesting and curious. It's not even clear how he convinced a whole digging crew to NOT rescue the man fast. Just a stupid outsider using the sheriff to force a professional crew to dig the long way. Makes no sense. Obviously they all belong in prison as they got a man killed. The professional crew listened to a fool. These small things make it unrealistic enough so that it doesn't really hit you hard emotionally. If you want a man to live then you can do this silly stuff and have viewers largely forget about it. If you want to kill him off you need to make it realistic not just force it. But it's a fun little flick that's above the usual 50's stuff. Everything besides the ending is fun enough. Maybe a remake is in order?
There are other cave rescue movies and they are all a bit low quality as they never try to follow real rescue missions, but just reimagine everything. This is such a movie too, but it's one of the stronger ones. The fact that it is old makes you want to look past some of the weaker stuff in it.
Jan Sterling looks glorious here with a very peculiar blonde look. And she and the other smaller roles are very fine here as they don't have to do too much. Kirk Douglas is in every scene here and carries it all.
Now, the story overall is good. We have Kirk Douglas the journalist make sure that the rescue team that is supposed to save a man stuck in a cave goes the long way in by drilling from the top. It takes days instead of a single day. Meanwhile he writes the story and gets popular and rich as it drags on for days. Jan Sterling wants to divorce the guy stuck in at the mine and date Douglas instead. Basically 2 big city outsiders are egotistical and want everything right now. They want money and big city life and hate being nobodies. The small town folk are overall good, but very gullible and are easily tricked by bad guys. The 50's setting is what makes the movie. The cars, technology, clotches, jobs. The setting makes the movie as the story is overly simple.
I'm not a fan of the ending. The caver just dies at the very end as they don't get to him in time. His wife then runs away to New York as she would have done anyhow. The parents are sad. Douglas dies as he doesn't tend to a stomach wound the wife gave him. I get that bad guys need to die if they do something bad. The old Hollywood code made sure you could always predict all endings. There is nothing deep to the story. I expected the ending and as I got it I felt like it belonged in a short film. I watched a long movie for an ending I already knew would come about if the operation failed - we know Douglas will die too then. I feel let down for sure. There is not much to figure out, no deeper or complicated moral values, no happy ending to tie it all together. It just stops all of a sudden. I liked the movie otherwise, but it's like it didn't dare to go anywhere interesting. We don't even see the cave digger die. So I was constantly wondering if Douglas just lied to people or if it happened. But as the ending continues for another few minutes you sorta get that this is it. Just this lazy outcome. He just died off screen!
I really wanted Douglas to grow from the experience. To get somewhere interesting and curious. It's not even clear how he convinced a whole digging crew to NOT rescue the man fast. Just a stupid outsider using the sheriff to force a professional crew to dig the long way. Makes no sense. Obviously they all belong in prison as they got a man killed. The professional crew listened to a fool. These small things make it unrealistic enough so that it doesn't really hit you hard emotionally. If you want a man to live then you can do this silly stuff and have viewers largely forget about it. If you want to kill him off you need to make it realistic not just force it. But it's a fun little flick that's above the usual 50's stuff. Everything besides the ending is fun enough. Maybe a remake is in order?
There are other cave rescue movies and they are all a bit low quality as they never try to follow real rescue missions, but just reimagine everything. This is such a movie too, but it's one of the stronger ones. The fact that it is old makes you want to look past some of the weaker stuff in it.