Timberjack

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....

The gear engine and operation of the log train make this movie a must see and have. It provides an examples of life and operations methods of a small logging operation and the underhanded means used to gain control of the RR and timber. The train operations couple the story line and characters. It is also interesting to see that even the hired thugs have some ethics.

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.

When he hears of his father's death, Tim Chipman returns to the family logging territory and company to help run it. However he walks back into a losing battle where rival logger Croft Brunner bought up the railway line and refused Chipman to remove his logs on it, forcing them to be moved the longest and costliest way; Brunner then followed this with an offer to buy Chipman out. When Chipman throws the offer back in Brunner's face he ends up dead in suspicious circumstances. With Tim taking over, Brunner hopes to get his offer accepted but Chipman Junior has no intention of giving the company to a man he suspects had a hand in his father's death.

From the opening credits alone (a hilariously corny song with some real gems in the lyrics - "hurry back, hurry back, timberjack") my hopes were not high but I decided, in the name of continuing to put off more important things, to watch it anyway. The film quickly moves into the standard patter for this type of film by running a series of songs, fistfights, romance and melodrama in a cycle that builds to an ending that more or less mixes them all together. This is hardly anything new and is typical of the "entertainment for all" ethos of similar films and it doesn't really do any aspect of it well enough to stand out or make any sort of lasting impression. The plot has an enjoyable tension between Chipman and Brunner and also produces some unspectacular but fun fight scenes; the romance aspect is badly done and reduces parts of the film to the level of poor melodrama. The songs are perky and lively but none of them stuck in my mind longer than the numbers themselves. This mix did enough to entertain me on a basic level, which was all I was really expecting it to do. The most interesting parts for me were the sections that showed the loggers in action – either up the top of a massive tree or floating logs down a river; it was fascinating to see it being done although I wouldn't watch the whole film again for that reason.

The cast is mixed but are part of the all-round entertainment value of the film. Hayden is a good screen presence in even the most average films and so he is here – just sticking out his chest and jaw and letting them do the work. Brian is a reasonable foil and, despite having less of a presence gives almost as good as he gets. Ralston is a bit bland but is good in the musical numbers; Carmichael provides a small bit of comic relief. Noir fans will probably be as surprised as I was to find Elisha Cook Jr in a tiny role hidden behind a wisp of whiskers! Overall this is a fairly average film that doesn't really excel at anything but does the usual mix of action, melodrama and music together to produce an enjoyable film. It isn't anything special but it has just about enough going for it to be a watchable 90 minutes if you are in an undemanding mood.