Mountaineering films have never been audience favourites, and this one will do nothing to convert you to the snowy slopes.

The last film to come from the distinguished Austrian-born director Fred Zinnemann, this boasts superb location camerawork by Giuseppe Rotunno, but you'll soon lose patience with its story of a middle-aged doctor (Sean Connery) who has a passionate affair with his 20-year-old niece (Betsy Brantley) and takes her on an Alpine climbing holiday.

Here she promptly and very, very predictably falls heavily for their young guide (Lambert Wilson), sneaking off to have sex outside their camp half-way up a mountain, which must be cold comfort to say the least.

Needless to add, the two men go off climbing together, and you could write the developments yourself from then on and probably be right.

The actors are called on to react heavily to each other's dialogue which only heightens the unreality of the situation.

Anna Massey and Sheila Reid briefly bring life to the Jungfrau with their delightful portraits of two snoopy spinster sisters.