God's Country and the Woman (1937) User Reviews

Good late 30s timberjack movie with excellent photography

[funkyfry · 7/10 · 5 December 2002]

Early (1937) technicolor Western has Brent as the scion of a wealthy lumber family, brought back from an extended European vacation and forced to work for the family concern in Canada. They're literally at "loggerheads" with another lumber family who wants to ship their lumber through the territory without paying anything to its owners. The biggest obstacle for Brent in solving this problem is enemy boss Beverly Roberts, for whom he works until he begins to sympathize with her cause. Roberts is amusingly masculine in a leather jerkin and pants, but of course puts on the frilly dress when she gets a real shine to Mr. Brent. Allan Hale also does some solid character work as the hardy head guy. There are several notable comic performances in the film as well.

Good action, luscious photography, good performances in a funny story produce an exciting film -- one of the best in WB's inexorable line of lumber sagas.

George Brent's character is very hard to like in this lumbering drama.

[planktonrules · 6/10 · 20 January 2017]

Obviously this film was expected to be a big money maker...a prestige film for Warner Brothers. How else could you explain their using Technicolor for the film? Sadly, despite the color, the film itself is only okay...a lumbering spectacle set in the lumbering country.

When the film begins, Jeff (Robert Barrat) is furious at his brother and partner, Steve (George Brent). After all, Jeff works his butt off while Steve parties in the big city. Well, Jeff is announcing that enough is enough and it's going to end NOW! Well, apparently Steve didn't exactly believe him and soon makes a muck of things. A bit later, when Jeff takes his annoying brother on an airplane trip to the lumber fields, Steve impulsively steals the plane!! It's low on fuel and he's soon forced to land at a nearby lumber camp run by the arch rivals!! Now, he's stuck there and forced to work for a change. Can Steve manage to do a decent days work AND somehow avert an all out war between the two lumber companies?! And, more importantly, will the audience care?

The main problem with this film is that Steve is easy to hate. Sure, he improves over time but this seems very unlikely considering what a jerk he is in the first third of the picture. Another is that the female love interest is about as alluring as a cactus! Overall, despite a few good moments, a nice sea plane and a cool explosion, it's a thoroughly mediocre film and nothing more...so don't let the color fool you!

Feuding Timber Families

[bkoganbing · 5/10 · 15 March 2010]

A year after Paramount did its first outdoor color feature, The Trail Of The Lonesome Pine, Warner Brothers shot this film entirely on location in the timber country of the State of Washington. God's Country And The Woman is about two feuding timber families and the head of one family trying to crush the other.

But Robert Barrat has more than getting rid of Beverly Roberts and her holdings on his mind. He's got a lazy irresponsible playboy brother in the person of George Brent who spends the money as fast as Bob can cut down the trees to make it.

Through a combination of circumstances that you have to watch God's Country And The Woman for, Brent winds up working for the opposition and wooing Beverly Roberts. I don't think I have to tell you how all this turn's out.

Brent's playing a part that probably was originally written with Errol Flynn in mind, in fact I think the project was conceived for Errol Flynn and Olivia DeHavilland. Bette Davis turned this one down also and went on suspension. So the B team of George Brent and Beverly Roberts was brought in.

On the plus side the camera work in this film is superb. The footage was used many times over by Warner Brothers. Though not credited here, I recognize some of it from their later logging story from the Fifties, The Big Trees.

The story however may have been a little too overplotted and Robert Barrat does an about face in character and motivation that one does not see coming in any way.

Good scenery of the great Pacific Northwest and excellent background shooting of the work of the lumberjacks. Sad though that it's tied to a rather pedestrian tale.

One for fans of Bev Roberts!

[JohnHowardReid · 7/10 · 15 November 2017]

Director: WILLIAM KEIGHLEY. Screenplay: Norman Reilly Raine. Story: Charles Milne, Peter Belden. Adapted from the novel by James Oliver Curwood. Uncredited screenplay contributor: William Jacobs. Photographed in Technicolor by Tony Gaudio. Associate cinematographers from the Technicolor company: Wilfrid M. Cline, William V. Skall, Allen Davey. Technicolor color consultant: Natalie Kalmus. Film editor: Jack Killifer. Art director: Carl Jules Weyl. Music: Max Steiner. Music director: Leo F. Forbstein. Assistant director: Chuck Hansen. Associate producer: Louis F. Edelman. Executive producers: Hal B. Wallis, Jack L. Warner.

Copyright 21 December 1936 by Warner Brothers Pictures, Inc. and The Vitaphone Corporation. New York opening at the Strand: 10 January 1937. U.S. release: 16 January 1937. 80 minutes.

SYNOPSIS: Ruthless timber baron declares "war" on his rivals.

COMMENT: An "A" feature starring Beverly Roberts, who made about twenty "B" movies in her brief cinema career between 1936 and 1939. This is certainly the best role of her Hollywood interlude and the part that most fans will remember today. She's so charismatic in fact, that the rest of the players tend to remain in the background, though George Brent makes for a more than serviceable hero and Robert Barrat authoritatively handles a leading role as the fast- talking, money-grubbing quasi-villain of the piece.

Mind you, the whole lot will be seen as evildoers by today's environmental standards, but that was not the case in 1937. The real villain is our old friend Barton MacLane. El Brendel is along for some strained comic relief and Alan Hale is singularly miscast as a Finnish lumberjack. Never mind, there's action a-plenty in picturesquely unusual real locations, captured in nice Technicolor photography.

Director William Keighley who was later bounced from "The Adventures of Robin Hood" seems determined to prove that he can handle action with the best of them, though I suspect a specialist like Breezy Eason was actually involved.