[1] The film, a romantic drama set in Kentucky, is about a widower (Bernhard Goetzke) who jealously competes with his crippled son (John F. Hamilton) and a man he loathes (Malcolm Keen) over the affections of a schoolteacher (Nita Naldi).

Due to producing the film in Germany, Hitchcock had more directorial freedom than he would have had in England, and he was influenced by German cinematic style and technique.

[2] The film is set in Kentucky, where J. P. Pettigrew's (Bernhard Goetzke) wife had died giving birth to their son Edward (John F. Hamilton), born disabled.

Pettigrew later witnesses his now-grown son making love to[clarification needed] schoolteacher Beatrice (Nita Naldi), and confronts her about the relationship.

Pettigrew is subsequently shot and wounded (contemporary sources differ on this point), and is no longer a threat to John and his family.

Due to producing the film in Germany, Hitchcock had more directorial freedom than he would have had in England, and influences in the technique and style of German cinema are evident in his early works.

Poor weather during the location shoot was a constant source of trouble, and Hitchcock and the crew had an uneasy relationship with the locals.

[13][1] Writing in 1949, the academic Peter Noble inadvertently started a rumour repeated by many authors since, of the film being released in the United States as Fear o' God.

"[19] Hitchcock himself considered The Mountain Eagle to be mundane melodrama best forgotten, and described the film to François Truffaut as "awful" and a "very bad movie",[20] and stated that he was not sorry that there are no known prints.

[3] Film historian J. Lary Kuhns, however, states in the book Hitchcock's Notebooks by Dan Auiler that one contemporary writer called The Mountain Eagle far superior to The Lodger.

[17] The Guardian describes the film as "a ripping yarn about a dastardly father, a crippled son, a lovely schoolteacher and an innocent imprisoned".