Sir Sean Connery stars in Fred Zinnemann's haunting tale of incestuous love set against a magnificent background of the Swiss Alps.
Douglas Meredith (Sir Sean Connery) is a respectable married middle aged doctor with a terrible secret. He's been having a secret consensual incestuous affair with his niece Kate (Betsy Brantley) for some time now. She lives in the Swiss Alps and they have their badly needed privacy there. One day, Swiss guide Johann Biari (Lambert Wilson) shows up to take them mountain climbing. Kate shows a faint interest in this man, which worries Douglas. During the climb an accident happens and their lives are changed forever.
A Swiss Alpine village in the 1930's. A middle-aged man (Sean Connery) and a young girl (Betsy Brantley) are on a climbing holiday - and, clearly, they are deeply in love. But there are problems. Quite apart from the difference in their ages, she has a background of mental instability, while he is in the throes of an unhappy marriage to a priggish wife.
There is one further complication: the handsome young Alpine guide (Lambert Wilson) who accompanies them on their mountain excursions. He takes an immediate shine to Miss Brantley and, in no time at all, is trying to woo her away from Connery. The situation moves into top gear when Connery, in a desperate bid to prove himself the equal to his good-looking younger rival, undertakes a notoriously hazardous climb with him.
There is an avalanche and only one man returns. . .
