Third Man on the Mountain

Third Man on the Mountain is a 1959 American Walt Disney Productions film directed by Ken Annakin and starring Michael Rennie and James MacArthur. Set during the golden age of alpinism, its plot concerns a young Swiss man who conquers the mountain that killed his father. It is based on Banner in the Sky, a James Ramsey Ullman novel about the first ascent of the Citadel, and was televised under this name. The film inspired the Matterhorn Bobsleds attraction at Disneyland Park.

Cast

 * Michael Rennie as Captain John Winter
 * James MacArthur as Rudi Matt
 * Janet Munro as Lizbeth Hempel
 * James Donald as Franz Lerner
 * Herbert Lom as Emil Saxo
 * Laurence Naismith as Teo Zurbriggen
 * Lee Patterson as Klaus Wesselhoft
 * Walter Fitzgerald as Herr Hempel
 * Nora Swinburne as Frau Matt
 * Ferdy Mayne as Andreas Krickel
 * Helen Hayes as a tourist (uncredited)
 * Kenneth Brannan as a tourist (uncredited)

Production
The film was made on location in Switzerland with Gaston Rébuffat as the head of the mountain second unit photography. The film was shot in the summer of 1958 in Zermatt, a location that Walt Disney was familiar with from his ski trips. The studio portions of the film were done in London.

The extraordinary difficulty of making this film on the Matterhorn was chronicled in the "Perilous Assignments" episode of Walt Disney Presents.

The musical score for Third Man on the Mountain was composed by William Alwyn and features the original song "Climb the Mountain" by Franklyn Marks.