Spy Hunt (1950)

This is a very good action spy thriller. The first thing old movie fans will notice about this movie is that it opens with the theme music from the Basil Rathbone "Sherlock Holmes" series. The second thing you will notice is that it stars Howard Duff, one of the Sam Spade actors from the radio series.

Duff is in Europe to take care of two zoo-bound black panthers, to earn money to get back to America. Marta Toren is an agent (posing as a reporter) who puts something into the collar of one of the panthers. She makes a date with him to get him out of the panthers' box car, but does not keep it. Enemy agents are all over the place, however, and quickly pick up on the ruse. The train is sabotaged, and the panthers escape. Duff wakes up in a Swiss hotel, run by Walter Slezak, who is also a physician. A local military office has been assigned to kill the panthers on sight. This doesn't help Duff, who doesn't get paid if he doesn't get the panthers back.

Duff meets Philip Friend at the hotel. He is a foreign correspondent. Next to arrive if Philip Dorn, who is a professional big game hunter with his large hounds. A black panther is the only large animal he has not killed. Next is Robert Douglas, who is an artist wanting to sketch the panthers. (He sounds remarkably like Vincent Price.) Obviously, the list of "suspects" is growing.

Duff packs to go to Paris, but suddenly, who should come into his room but Toren. He chews her out for breaking the date, but she tells him about the film in the collar. He is unimpressed, until he passes a shady-looking character headed upstairs. He is threatening Toren, and Duff (it is hard not to call him Spade) knocks him out.

One panther kills a soldier, and the hunt for them intensifies. One of the hounds is killed. Then suddenly Duff and Toren spot a cat go into an abandoned hut. They trap him, but it is not the one with the film. Dorn heads out on a night hunt - very dangerous because of the cat's vision. The hunt scenes are beautifully filmed, with the panther running across snowy moonlit landscape. While they are gone, Douglas knocks out the guard and kills the captured panther.

Finally Duff kills the other panther and get the film, but as he does, he is fired upon. It turns out to be Friend. Duff throws him the collar, then charges Friend, and is shot. Toren shoots Friend. Duff tells here where the film is, and passes out. He wakes up back at the hotel, but Douglas is listening outside the door. And, oh yes, by this time Toren is calling Duff "darling." (You expected something different?)  Douglas pretends to go to his room, but sneaks back to Duff's room and takes out a switchblade. Duff apparently is asleep, and he searches the room. He knocks over a bottle, and Slezak and Toren hear it and rush to investigate. When Douglas puts a knife to Duff's throat, Toren tells him it is in one of the bullets in the rifle. In a very tense scene, she begins taking apart the bullets. She lights the powder with a cigarette and Douglas is temporarily blinded.

Duff and Toren take a train to Paris. He asks her to marry him, she says he is cute, and they all live happily ever after.






Toren and Duff



Douglas