weezeralfalfa
One of 3 rather unconventional westerns that Kirk Douglas starred in the '51-52 period, the others being: "Along the Great Divide", and "The Big Sky". All 3 are among my favorite westerns, especially this one. Kirk has a great time playing a brazen egomaniacal tightwad Wisconsin lumber baron(Jim Fallon), preparing to move his operation to the newly opened giant redwoods of northern CA. This was a historical trend around 1890-1910, as the most desirable trees in the Great Lakes region had mostly been cut. There seems to be confusion by some reviewers whether giant sequoias or redwoods are involved. This is not helped by the claim by one of the actors that some of these trees are near 4000 years old. That is only true of sequoias, not the featured redwoods! This was a remake of the 1938 Warner's "Valley of the Giants": also shot in Technicolor: a rare luxury at that timeBig Jim Fallon is a charismatic heel, who always seems to be behind in paying his workers, while looking to maximize his near term profits. He offers them a percentage of profits, instead of wages, if they will accompany him to CA. Most sign on. Jim has each sign a claim for a parcel of prime redwood forest, partially occupied by a religious colony who are self-appointed guardians of the biggest oldest trees. Big Jim tries to get friendly with these folks, partially through his folksy charismatic side-kick: Yukon(Edgar Buchanan). He is soon smitten by Alicia, daughter of the colony leader, but is still determined to cut down the biggest trees, by utilizing a new federal law that allows newcomers to appropriate these lands if the present inhabitants don't pay a fee. His bullying tactics cause his buddy Yukon to switch sides, while two of his other partners decide to try to arrange his death.. After Alicia's father and Yukon are accidentally killed by his renegade partners, Fallon is transformed and aids the religious colony, while his former buddies try to stop them from getting their logs to market. In the end, Fallon joins the religious colony and marries Alicia: a conversion nearly as astonishing as that in "3 Godfathers".Edgar Buchanan, as Yukon, and Eve Miller, as Alicia, are really the heart and soul of this yarn. Yukon, as a reformed charismatic gold prospector, who is seduced by the sincerity of the religious cult in their mission to save the biggest trees, and Eve, as a possible love interest, in their separate ways, eventually manage to transform Fallon. Unfortunately, the formulistic script required that Yukon die a martyr to make room for Alicia as Fallon's new best friend.(A similar substitution is evident in "The Far Country", for example).As was the case in many westerns, the lead male gets involved with two marriageable women: one wholesome and the other shady, if flamboyant. Here, Patrice Wymore plays Fallon's long time glamorous shady lady. Eventually, she has to compete with Alicia's wholesome image, and decides to vacate. In the Randolph Scott western "The Man Behind the Gun", Patrice played the winning wholesome gal, while Lina Romay was the losing flamboyant shady lady. Patrice was a striking beauty as showcased in this film, and an excellent underrated actress, with singing and dancing talents, as exhibited in the one number she is given in this film. No wonder Errol Flynn chose her as his last wife. Unfortunately, she caught him during his declining years, with increasing reliance on drugs and alcohol. Also, unfortunately, he would give her a daughter with even greater susceptibility to drug and alcohol addiction, resulting in her early death.Eve Miller, as Alicia, also was perfectly cast, as a wholesome, level -headed, OK-looking woman, though hardly a striking beauty in Patrice's class. Unfortunately, Eve evidently had problems in her real romantic life, and never became a major actress. She never married, and nearly succeeded in a suicide attempt after her suitor wanted to delay marriage. She would succeed in a later suicide attempt. Although major lumber operations did often move from the Great Lakes region to the Pacific Northwest around the turn of the century, the giant redwoods were no longer a virgin resource, as implied in this film. Disappointed CA gold seekers often became lumberjacks in these forests, so that much had been logged by the turn of the century. However, the legal shenanigans over ownership of these forests had some historical reality.Buchanan has one of his more sympathetic and visible roles. Too often he played an ineffective drunkard, cowardly lawman or political blowhard. Perfect as an experienced common sense-dispensing sourdough. Before becoming an actor, he had a career as a dentist!Veteran character actor Roy Roberts had his work cut out for him as Judge Crenshaw, who tried to sort out the snarled land claims and keep the peace between the lumber interests and the religious colony.
sddavis63
Kirk Douglas offered a very good performances in a movie that I really didn't expect much out of, but that turned out to be surprisingly interesting. Neither the title nor the plot gave me high hopes. The story is about the efforts of a religious community to prevent the cutting down of California's giant redwoods by a Wisconsin lumberman. It doesn't sound particularly exciting, but actually turns out to be pretty good. Douglas is the lumberman - Jim Fallon - a charismatic conniver who seems able to convince anyone of his good intentions, even while he plots to take as much advantage of them as he possibly can. There's some decent enough action, particularly the scene in which Fallon tries to rescue Sister Chadwick (Eve Miller) from the out of control train. There's also good use of humour, provided both by Douglas and Edgar Buchanan as "Yukon" Burns, who becomes first Fallon's right hand man and then his antagonist - and who actually ends up being appointed as a marshall by a local judge (Roy Roberts) who's sympathetic to the religious folk and is willing to twist and turn every law on the book to help them.That evolution is one of the problems with the movie, however. People change too fast from good guys to bad guys, or from friends into enemies, and it's hard to really understand how the changes came upon them, which sometimes makes it hard to keep track of who's on whose side at any given time, and the final evolution of Fallon - telegraphed as it from the moment he arrives in California - is still hard to believe. I also thought that aside from Douglas and Buchanan, the performances were average at best. Still, it's not a bad watch. 6/10
djensen1
Okay western tells the tale of Kirk Douglas as a would-be lumber baron with more charm than business savvy. Not as good as it could have been with a little sharper direction, but the dialog has some spark and Douglas shines like a new penny when he smiles.He gets adequate support from the usual suspects, with Patrice Wymore particularly good as his dance hall prostitute girlfriend. Eve Miller as the real love interest is a bit flat by comparison, even granted that she's stuck in the role of a holy roller trying to protect California's giant redwoods.The plot manages to get genuinely clever at times, with the local judge conspiring to help the Quakers foil Douglas's lumber scheme, Douglas scheming right back, and then the whole thing going topsy-turvy. Still, something is missing (and the faded print I saw didn't help) but the ending goes big to try to save it and nearly succeeds. Worth the time for fans of Douglas, but not a must-see title.
bkoganbing
In his autobiography, The Ragman's Son, Kirk Douglas was telling about how badly he wanted to get out of his Warner Brothers contract. He made Jack Warner and offer he couldn't refuse, a picture for nothing, zero, zip, bupkis and he'd be released. Jack Warner took him up and the result was The Big Trees.Now getting a top star to work for nothing, you'd have thought that Warner would get him something good. Instead Kirk Douglas was saddled with an even worse than usual programmer and something he described as the worst film he ever made.Kirk is a two fisted lumber baron who goes out to the Northern California area to cut down those giant redwoods. A Quaker group who's settled there, ain't having none of that and the story unfolds.The players all look so totally bored. And the way the script is written you have absolutely no liking for Douglas's character Jim Fallon or believe it when he switches sides. In fact the villain of the piece, John Archer is treated like a doormat by Douglas when he was working for him. Watching the movie I couldn't blame him for knifing Douglas in their business. Ditto when gal pal Patrice Wymore sells a dam to Douglas's enemies and momentarily throws our hero for a loop. Best thing you could say about this is that it does have some nice special effects with Kirk Douglas riding on the runaway lumber train. The scene in How the West Was Won was copied and improved with Cinerama from the Big Trees.They should have just left the forest alone.
