Für eine Handvoll Geld

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

The Big Trees (1952)

There might be some value in seeing this movie as a sign of another environmental time. There is a fight back and forth over a stand of big, valuable trees, and the owner of them at one point is the U.S. government. But even that will not save them. The movie feels like a Wild West genre film, but set in the big woods of the coast instead of the deserts or Monument Valley. But there are all the simple good folk (in this case, Quakers), the sheriff and buddies, the good guy with issues, and the general mischief of any cowboy town. In general, substitute lumberman for cowboy.

And substitute Felix E. Feist for John Ford as director. Feist made a series of B-movies, sports movies, and other genre flick, and this really is one of them, even though Kirk Douglas, the main actor, was coming off of two major movies elsewhere. It condemns both the movie and the reviewer to admit I had to skip parts of it, it just got so boring. Even Douglas couldn't lift it up. Even fistfights and gunfights and a huge explosion of a timbered railroad bridge couldn't save it. It isn't a terrible movie, but just routine to the point of "don't bother." Naturally it's better than a lot of dreck on television, and that's where you ought to catch it, some night when nothing better looms, by accident. It might actually be fun if it catches you by surprise.

Two things I noticed that were great. One, there is a legal trick pulled where the judge uses the criminal code to get away with cutting some giant trees legally, sort of. And the other is where some women folk (Quakers, who are famous for their pacifism) swarm a man with a gun, knock him down, and then, with relish, one of the women smacks him with a large rock.

"The Big Trees" is one of those entertaining films regularly churned out by major studios in the early to mid-50s which were fun for the whole family and offended no one. Usually directed in efficient, workmanlike fashion (in this case, by Felix Feist) and essentially plot-driven by some sort of conflict that required physical measures to resolve, these programmers moved along with a fast pace and lots of action that left little room for subtleties but usually gave the moviegoing public its bang for the buck.

The conflict here is a stalemate between entrepreneurish lumbermen who want to cut down the giant Redwoods in California's northlands to sell the lumber for huge profits and a Quaker-like religious sect that has already settled on the land and views these big trees as majestic creations of the Almighty that should be left untouched. The former are led by smooth-talking Jim Fallon (Kirk Douglas) who, in trying to take advantage of a recent Act of Congress, oozes his unctuous charm to gain the settlers confidence for a peaceful live-and-let-live coexistence. When the latter continue to defend their big trees - especially Elder Bixley (Charles Meredith) and his daughter Alicia Chadwick (Eve Miller) - he resorts to legal maneuvers which are again stymied. The deadlock is finally breached when rival lumbermen, who have even fewer scruples than Fallon, move in for a piece of the action and violence ensues.

Several commenters on this page have already rightly stated that "The Big Trees" is Kirk Douglas's least favorite of all his films. That's understandable when one considers the many classics and near-classics in his filmography - "The Strange Love of Martha Ivers", "Out of the Past", "Champion", "Detective Story", "Ace in the Hole", "The Bad and the Beautiful", "Lust for Life", "Paths of Glory", "Spartacus", "Lonely are the Brave", and "Seven Days in May" by directors such as Joseph L. Mankiewicz, Billy Wilder, William Wyler, Vincent Minnelli, Stanley Kubrick and John Frankenheimer - it's no wonder that a medium-budgeted actioner about fortune seeking loggers at odds with an environmentally-conscious religious sect should find itself sitting at the back of the class.

And yet I think Kirk has been too hard on this movie. The outdoor locations, filmed near Humbolt County in Northern California are at once awe inspiring and breathtaking, the colour (on good prints) gorgeous, the supporting cast featuring Edgar Buchanan and Patrice Wymore more than adequate, and the action scenes, particularly the runaway train, set the adrenaline rushing.

Best of all is Douglas himself. He has never been more charismatic than he is here. Whereas in other films he brought an unnerving intensity that sometimes bordered on paranoia to his hard-driven complex characters, he is here at once a likeable scoundrel: jovial, charming, gentlemanly yet virile and athletic, performing his own stunts when called upon. A remarkable performance, made more remarkable by the fact that he made this picture for no salary in order to end his contract with Warner Bros. He easily could have sleepwalked through the role but didn't, or at least didn't appear to. A very professional gesture.

What weakens "The Big Trees" is the lack of a strong villain. John Archer (Frenchy) is unable to do much with a part that is badly underwritten. He is neither cunning nor threatening as he inexplicably transmogrifies from Mr. Bland to Mr. Bad and certainly does not deserve the horrific fate that eventually befalls him. Fortunately, Kirk Douglas is there to remind viewers what star power - even in a programmer - is all about.

I have a home in the middle of a redwood forest, so I was thrilled to see "The Big Trees". Imagine my surprise when I then learned that the story was set very close to us--in the Mendocino National Forest. Much of the film was filmed closer to the coast in Eureka...but both are certainly beautiful places and are pretty much unspoiled today...something that might shock folks when they hear of California.

When the story begins in 1900, Jim Fallon (Kirk Douglas) is trying to fast-talk his men, as he keeps making promises but he's a lying huckster. Now his latest scheme is to get rich off California redwood lumber...and he has a new partner, Yukon Burns (Edgar Buchanan), and he sends the man out west to investigate the land before he arrives a bit later. When Fallon arrives, he learns that Yukon has been taken in by some very nice Quakers and this partner doesn't realize Fallon is a scheming jerk who wants to cheat those folks off their land.

So is this any good? Well, not especially. Although Warner Brothers did some nice location shooting and filmed the movie in color, it really is a B-western with only a few minor changes. This time, instead of the baddies trying to steal all the land for their cattle empires (the most familiar plot in these B-westerns), it's folks stealing land for trees. And, although Kirk Douglas stars in this one, he really wasn't a big star yet...though he was well on his way. But I couldn't love this slick movie because some of it simply doesn't make sense--especially the love interest. We are to believe that although Fallon, at least indirectly, was responsible for a man's death, only moments later in the film the dead man's daughter announces she's in love with Fallon! Plus, Fallon never really deserved this love...he was an underhanded jerk...at least until the obligatory redemption at the end. Overall, a nice looking film....and I liked the trees...but one that I can understand why Douglas himself wasn't very proud of the movie. Overall, watchable but not much more.

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.