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Whoever thought the beautiful, sexy Susan Hayward would start her career playing a character named "Butch"? In The Forest Rangers, she's not the romantic lead. Paulette Goddard is the beautiful love interest to forest ranger Fred MacMurray, with masculine Susan Hayward waiting in the wings. This love triangle is amusing enough to justify renting this movie, so if you're as much a Susan Hayward fan as I am, I recommend watching it one afternoon for a good laugh.

With tons of special effects combined with real footage of forest fires and controlled burns, The Forest Rangers is a pretty impressive movie for 1942. Stunt doubles are used and abused, and the blue-screen effect is very well edited for the time period. The plot is interesting and fast-paced, and there's both a surprise and a good laugh in the end. It's a little more light-hearted than you'd expect, but it's pretty cute. Plus there's a funny scene between Fred MacMurray and Eugene Pallette straight out of any classic comedy: Fred has been out all night with Paulette, Eugene's daughter, and neither man knows who the other is. So, while Eugene is laughing about Fred's conquest, he has no idea that the girl in question is his daughter!

Seeing Fred MacMurray, Paulette Goddard and Susan Hayward in this rousing gorgeous technicolor movie was great fun. Story of a Forest Ranger (MacMurray), being chased by the beautiful but butch lumber mill owner (Hayward), and then meeting and falling in love at first sight with a rich girl (Goddard) makes the triangle perfect. Guy marries girl and the fun begins as the vixen tries to woo him back. Funny scene when the three of them are stranded in the woods and have to spend the night with one blanket to share between them.

Excellent forest fire scenes filmed by director Marshall. Climatic final scenes when the fire starter is surprisingly revealed and Goddard and Hayward, caught in the midst of the blazing woods, have to survive. Excellent dramatic footage of the fire and comedy of situation make this great movie fare. With today's films this one done in the early 40s still holds it's own.

Fred MacMurray (Don) is a forest ranger who works in a tight-nit forest ranger community that deals with the preservation of the forest and lots of fire-fighting. Particularly now that an arsonist is setting off fires. The local forest ranger girl is Susan Hayward (Tana) and although she is fondly nicknamed 'Butch', she definitely isn't. She sees MacMurray as her catch. However, one day at a parade in a local town, MacMurray meets and marries Paulette Goddard (Celia) before returning with her to his community. Everyone is shocked. And Hayward is not happy…

The film is shot in Technicolour which adds to the enjoyment and the cast are good although I wish retired ranger Lynne Overman (Jammer) spoke properly. WTF is he saying? We get a mystery as to who is starting deliberate fires played alongside some comical situations as Goddard and Hayward spar with each other. And it's all good entertainment. This film was better than I expected. MacMurray leaves me indifferent, rather like his attitude towards both these women in his life. The interest in the film comes from the 2 female leads. There is also the bonus of hearing snippets of the song "Jingle Jangle Jingle" at various moments. Always nice to hear a tune. Can you guess who the arsonist is? I doubt it.

If you look at the credits you will notice a Keith Richards in the role of a Ranger. That guy really has had a varied life. This was in the days before he plugged in a guitar and joined the Rolling Stones and then fell out of a mango tree.

Fred MacMurray is the chief of a forest ranger crew who get plenty of action fighting forest fires. Susan Hayward runs a logging operation down the road a ways. She has her eye on Fred but he thinks of her as one of the boys.

When Fred meets extremely cute Paulette Goddard riding in a parade over in town, he falls for her quickly and they are married in a snap. Poor Susan isn't too thrilled and sets about figuring a way to send Paulette packing for the city she came from.

Okay, so it's kind of a lame plot....Luckily, it really isn't developed too seriously. A typical scene is the one in which our main characters get stuck overnight in the woods with only one blanket for the three of them: lying on the forest floor, they jockey for position for about five minutes, both of the women wanting to cuddle up to Fred. It's kind of amusing in a silly way.

A subplot involves the rangers' investigation into a rash of forest fires—is logger Albert Dekker the local arsonist? The supporting cast also includes Lynne Overman as MacMurray's old-timer right hand man and Regis Toomey as a pilot who flies over fires and radios in intelligence.

Despite the mediocre story line, MacMurray, Goddard and Hayward all look great and give lively performances. The Technicolor is gorgeous and there are some intense forest fire scenes—so why bother about plot?

Also entertaining: As far as I can tell, that really is Fred MacMurray singing a ballad called "Tall Grow the Timbers."

I really love the film, but it is the one film I can't obtain a personal copy. Amazon has been able to fulfill all my requests and searches, but for this single film, it doesn't even stream. Highly disappointing, I'd like to know the reason why. Paulette Goddard, as always, was superb, Fred MacMurray makes a fine lead, and Susan Heyward is excellent in her efforts to foil Miss Goddard. The supporting cast is fine as well. Much of the appeal for me is that growing up in Oregon (though the film is not set there), the story has high resonance as Forest Management, and its related industries are an historic and integral part of our culture and economy. Another fine such film is "The Tall Trees" starring Kirk Douglas, which I highly reccomend.