Titanes de la montaña

Ah yes, the Republic treatment for logging movies shot in glorious 'funny looking' Trucolor. One must be very forgiving of Republic constantly making silent movie western melodramas even if they were produced 1955 and in color. It is as if they just kept making the same (sort of) films year in and out until the doors closed in 1959. Vera, the singing wife of studio head Herbert Yates moans a few songs and swings her Hungarian hips about the saloon warbling through her ZsaZsa sounding accent. Somehow, all this is great fun. There is great outdoor scenery, some fantastic railroad location footage and genuinely interesting logging train scenes. Adolph Menjou and Hoagy Carmichael are added to the cast of character actors who look as thought they are there to earn enough to afford a long holiday. Some scenes outside the saloon doors are clearly shot in the corridor at the entrance of a sound stage which all makes TIMBERJACK more quaintly fascinating. As with Johnny Guitar, someone returns to slug it out with someone and fix the bad guys. However we have Vera instead of Joan in this one and a competent serial director. In fact if it was chopped up into 12 minute episodes, that is exactly what TIMBERJACK would be. Very watchable for all the above reasons.

Vera Ralston in the Dietrich role gets to sing three songs, while Hoagy Carmichael has only one. But this Republic 'A' feature in Trucolor surrounds Mrs Yates with majestic treescapes, vintage locomotives and Sterling Hayden as her leading man flanked by a classy supporting cast; so you get your money's worth.

One of the most solid Republic Picture's western, and not the most known. Except JOHNNY GUITAR and the John Ford's films of course. The presence of the likes of Sterling Hayden and David Brian as the villain help obviously a lot, unlike the bland Vera Ralston's character. It is colourful, action packed, very predictable, but one of my Joseph Kane's favourite of the fifties. This prolific western maker, "home" director for Republic Studios, did his best in the fifties, though in the late forties he also gave us good stuff. Splendid natural settings and the Trucolor process can easily match this western to the best of Paramount or Universal companies features. And as usual in Republic Westerns, you have also a musical, singing scene; it's the "home" tradition for this studio, but here it is far more bearable than the awful Roy Royer's or Gene Autry's period of the forties....

Story involves a timberjack (Hayden) out to discover the murderer of his father. Unfortunately, the story gives us only one suspect in Hayden's rival in the local lumber trade, so there's not much mystery here. A few songs by Carmichael and a great rousing performance by Ralston lift the story slightly above the obvious. Nice locations, good action scenes, and Hayden is good as usual but seems unmotivated by this limited vehicle. Fairly solid, but few thrills beyond the music and good cast -- they deserved a little more story.

Unusual today, as a logger is the good guy! (Of course, so is the villain.) Some good footage of Shay-powered logging trains in operation; log rafts, and the like. The story and acting style are dated, but there's a nice supporting performance by Hoagy Carmichael and a great character by Adolphe Menjou.