There is one reason to view this...Technicolor. Oh, maybe another. The surreal beauty of the female Stars. They have the most wonderful eyes and sublime looks and are all attired in cheesy 1950's wardrobes with a Native American motif that is gorgeous. The 3-D may have been needed to propel rocks and fire out of the screen but these Women would have done it in 2-D. Aside from the eye candy there is little else here that is worthy of attention. There is an unfulfilled and predictable plot. Some cardboard performances stiffen things a bit, but it moves along at a welcome luscious pace.If the viewer could disconnect sight from brain this might be a winner. But alas it is all simply simple and nothing but postcard imagery with a Hollywood Magazine gloss.

No doubt the real star here is Glacier National Park and its scenic vistas. It's 1953 and Hollywood is trying to lure TV audiences back into theatres with lavish Technicolor that b&w can't compete with, and with a 3-D process that faded as quickly as it soared. In short, Hollywood is looking for new formulas that work. I suspect an uncertain background of this sort accounts for this very odd movie product. In brief, it's a scenic jumble. Maybe you can make sense of story developments, I couldn't. It's a weird blend of noirish plot with The Nature Channel. Something about a mysterious hit-man tracking down a murder witness in the Park. But somehow the thread never really gels amid a welter of confusing events. I also suspect the screenplay is the result of too many chefs, even good chefs like W.R. Burnett, Horace McCoy, and Charles Bennett (a Hitchcock favorite), all of whom are credited, and each likely with his own ideas.The cast is also an uneasy blend of aging names and hopeful no-names. Mature, Price, and Bendix lend some waning marquee strength, while Laurie and St. John are attractive newcomers. Yet, it's a real stretch to have the nubile young St. John ga-ga over the slightly effete, 40'ish Price. Then too, casting the unlikely Price as a top New York hit-man doesn't help. I realize there's supposed to be a surprise factor here, especially with the guffawing Cheshire's role; still, these come across as little more than artificial plot devices. Note too, the remnants of 3-D that come rolling at us during the avalanche sequence. And judging from the extravagant set for the climactic crevasse scene, "disaster" producer Irwin Allen is already experimenting with big ideas. Anyway, the storyline may jumble, but those Technicolor vistas continue to shine through and remain about the only reason to catch up with this RKO goulash.

In 1954 many of our Classic Screen actors of the 30's up to the 50's were starting to find acting roles hard to find and this particular picture managed to give every one a salary. The picture was never meant to win an Academy Award, it was simply to entertain the public with the best production they could create in the 1950's. Victor Mature,(Matt Hallett)," I Wake Up Screaming",'41, gave a great performance along with another great veteran actor William Bendix, (Chief Ranger Joe Parker),"Lifeboat",'44, who tried to keep everyone under control while rocks and dirt came tumbling on their resort area. Vincent Price,(Paul Adams),"The Tingler",'59 was added to the picture in order to make the film a THRILLER. Matt Hallett became a hero to every one when he managed to turn off the electricity, while live wires were flying all over the front door and roof of the lodge. Lets just remember that this film was produced in the 1950's and actors need to find WORK.

Did the State of Montana invest a huge chunk of money in Dangerous Mission? We see, in brash Technicolor, the snow-capped mountains and crystalline lakes of Big Sky country; we even get to see a forest fire and a couple of avalanches, one of which seems to have something to do with a plot. There's not much else to divert the attention, except the spectacle of white actors "made up" to impersonate native Americans (they look as though they'd been steeped in Paas Easter-egg dye). A fine cast --Victor Mature, William Bendix, Vincent Price and the very young Piper Laurie -- is thrown to the winds in a wisp of a story that seems left over from the final days of film noir, reworked as a Western, and finally released as this mash-note to mountain lodges and dude ranches. It concerns a woman (Laurie) who witnessed an execution back in the evil east and is being tracked down to insure her silence. The song "It's A Quarter to Three" keeps cropping up as though it had great thematic relevance, but it doesn't. Dangerous Mission has no theme, let alone thematic relevance.