Rank wasted no time in acquiring the rights to the Hammond Innes best-seller The Lonely Skier and put it into production straight away. It is a faithful adaptation and the skiing scenes which play such an important part in the narrative are notably well done. An abundance of dialogue requires close attention, and given the drawback that in British films of the period, Italians tended to be treated as excitable, volatile people who shouted all the time, it is easy to overlook, for instance, the significance of the auction early on that plays an important part later in the story. There is a good atmosphere and an effective building-up of tension as the mysterious characters gradually reveal their motives leading to the explosive climax. Stanley Holloway, Herbert Lom and Guy Middleton are in their element, and it's one of those films you tend to get more out of with a second viewing.
