Stewart Granger’s handsomeness in his 1940s Gainsborough films is so blinding that one pays attention to little else. As he got older, his looks dazzled less and a certain arrogance, inflexibility and stiffness became more apparent. He seems the type of person whose idea of a sense of humour is to laugh heartily at the misfortune of others. In Harry Black and the Tiger he’s meant to have a metal leg, which he throws around theatrically and which is only a little less expressive than his face. Half-way through the film I began wishing the tiger would stop eating all the Indian villagers, focus its attention on him and bring the film to a close. Not Hugo Fregonese’s best, though there is a superb dialogue-free opening sequence in which a tiger appears in the village and snacks on a mother and child.
José Arroyo
