The Big Trees

Taking it upon myself to question how movie stars and TV actors feel about their careers, it's too bad the individual can't choose the role or performance they're remembered for.  I thought of that a lot while watching 1952's The Big Trees with Edgar Buchanan playing a key supporting role. Working in movies and television in part of five decades, Buchanan was in almost 200 different movies and shows. But what's he most known for? His part in the very bad, very campy Green Acres and Petticoat Junction. What's that got to do with the review? Nothing, but I needed a lead, and that worked.

A bottom-line businessman interested in cash and little else, Jim Fallon (Kirk Douglas) has hit a bit of a roadblock. Running a highly successful lumber business, Fallon has run out of trees, but he sees the potential for a huge payday in California where redwood trees tower over the land.  The only problem? Well, besides having no money....Quakers live on the land and are in no mood to allow him to cut down the majestic trees. The potential for money is too much though, and Fallon keeps on pushing, finding a way to get to those trees. He is blinded by his drive, but when a former employee, Frenchy (John Archer), starts to work his own plan, all bets are off, especially with love and money on the line.

I'll get to Douglas, Buchanan and everything 'Trees' did and didn't have to offer, but first I have a question. You know what isn't interesting to watch? Trees. For all their beauty, they're just not entertaining. They just stand there. Sounds like a stupid complaint, huh? You would think a movie producer or a screenwriter would know better, but well....they didn't. This movie is only 90 minutes, but it felt like director Felix Feist has a weird tree fetish. The camera ogles the trees and in the process bring the already slow story to a screeching halt. Seeing the rings inside the tree, measuring their width, these are things that are as boring to write about as they are to watch. So anyways...yeah...if you really like random tree footage, this movie is for you.

I didn't mention Buchanan in the plot review mostly because his character is a key supporting character but not an essential one to the heart of the movie. He plays Yukon Burns, a veteran gold miner with plenty of years experience under his belt.  Yukon ends up being a friend and working partner of Fallon's, doing some of his dirty work only to realize he's being swindled. Even though they're friends, he goes off on his own to join the Quakers in their efforts to stop Fallon. It's typical Buchanan stuff. He's gruff, mumbles and glares through his part, but it's always fun watching him do it.  In his mean gruffness and being a crotchety old guy, there's some humor, and he does play well off Douglas's Fallon, not taking the crap that everyone else does.

Thanks to TCM choosing him as the September Star of the Month, there have been a fair share of Kirk Douglas reviews lately so I'll do my best to avoid repeating myself.  While many actors could and did play straight heroic roles or straight villains, Douglas could do both, sometimes switching effortlessly between the two mid-movie, like he does here.  However because it is the 1950s, it isn't enough of one or the other. Either make him a true bad guy or a true good guy. Don't waver in between.  Fallon is a swindler and a cheat, but he has some sort of odd awakening late because the movie requires him to do so for the story to continue, not because it makes any sense.  It's still Kirk Douglas, and he genuinely tries to make something of this, but it never works.

The screenplay is just too stupid to allow anything to ever happen in any semblance of a real world.  One gimmick has a Quaker, Alicia Chadwick (Eve Miller), and the local judge, Crenshaw (Roy Roberts), going all Lucy and Ethel with a cat and two dogs to help burn a building down.  Don't worry though, they're burning illegal documents in the process so the threat of hurting anyone or burning down the town is null and void. Later, Fallon also finds out Archer's Frenchy is double-crossing him. Oh no! They fight on a precarious bridge over a raging, roaring river, Frenchy falls, and Fallon walks away. Oh, by the way, French is fine! He's also ready to make more trouble. It's the little things that like that drive me crazy. None of it would happen in any real world, and the "twists" only exist to advance the story as needed. Be somewhat smart, be creative, think things through.

I really try with the reviews I write to give them all a fair shake, and I'm really trying here. I was bored to tears with this movie, and not even Kirk Douglas could save it. In other supporting parts look for a very young Alan Hale Jr. (later the Skipper on Gilligan's Island) as Tiny, one of Fallon's lumberjacks, and Patrice Wymore as Dora Figg, a young woman Fallon keeps on his arm in case she presents any value down the road. This movie was bad from the start and never improves. Pass on it, and keep on moving. For whatever reason, if you're curious, you can watch the whole movie at Youtube, link below.

The Big Trees <---whole movie (1952): */****