Big Cat, The

2147. THE BIG CAT (1949-USA). WITH Lon McCallister, peggy ann garner, preston FOSTER, FORREST TUCKER, SKIP HOME1ER. The year is 1933, the heart Of the Great Depression. The setting is beautiful Southern Utah where a seemingly endless draught has made it virtually imposÂsible to subsist. Nevertheless, a tough and weather beaten loner named Tom Eggers is determined to endure. “I love this country. I’m gonna stick it out till things get better if all I have to live on is the bounty you get for killing the big cat.” The latter is a beautiful but murderous cougar which has been stalking the area and which in the dead Of night emits terrifying howls. Eggers not only must contend with the cougar, which he obsessively tracks, but there is his rivalry with fellow mountaineer Gil Hawks and his two sons. One day, 20-year-old city boy Danny Turner arrives on the scene. Danny has been unable to find employment back in Philadelphia and has come to see Eggers in the naive hope Of finding work. His presence sols Off a highly charged drama in which deeply hidden tensions and secrets come boiling to the surface. Additionally, there is the potential Of romance for Danny in the person Of the boy-hungry Doris (former child star Peggy Ann Garner, now quite grown up). There even is a rip-roaring and matchlessly staged fight sequence between Eggers and Hawks that is a clasÂsic Of its kind, 75 minutes. Drama