While this film is set among the Coastal Redwoods and isn't a western, the plot is pretty much what you'd see in thousands of B-westerns. After all, the most familiar plot in these Bs is the evil boss who wants to force everyone off their land. Here in "Valley of the Gods", the exact same situation occurs...though instead of being over grazing land or gold mines, the thief is trying to take the land for its bounty in redwood lumber.
When the story begins, Fallon (Charles Bickford) is having a meeting with his slimey cronies. It seems he has a scheme to steal the land from some redwoods loggers, as the wood sells for many times that of other types of lumber. He also enlists the aid of Lee (Claire Trevor) to accompany him and set up her gambling joint in the Northern California forrests.
Most of the land Fallon intends to steal is owned by Bill Cardigan (Wayne Morris) and at first Cardigan believes the law will protect him and the other loggers. However, it's obvious Fallon is willing to bribe his way to the ownership of everything...and eventually this means open warfare between them.
If any of this seems familiar apart from the 108,390,284 westerns with this theme, "Valley of the Giants" was also made and remade many times and portions of the movie were even spliced into other films. Frankly, if you've seen one of them, there isn't a lot of need to see the others.
So is this any good? Yes, though as I've said already VERY familiar. The actors are generally good (though Morris isn't as tough as some other actors might have been in this role), the action and stunts, pretty amazing. Worth seeing...but far from a must-see.
When the story begins, Fallon (Charles Bickford) is having a meeting with his slimey cronies. It seems he has a scheme to steal the land from some redwoods loggers, as the wood sells for many times that of other types of lumber. He also enlists the aid of Lee (Claire Trevor) to accompany him and set up her gambling joint in the Northern California forrests.
Most of the land Fallon intends to steal is owned by Bill Cardigan (Wayne Morris) and at first Cardigan believes the law will protect him and the other loggers. However, it's obvious Fallon is willing to bribe his way to the ownership of everything...and eventually this means open warfare between them.
If any of this seems familiar apart from the 108,390,284 westerns with this theme, "Valley of the Giants" was also made and remade many times and portions of the movie were even spliced into other films. Frankly, if you've seen one of them, there isn't a lot of need to see the others.
So is this any good? Yes, though as I've said already VERY familiar. The actors are generally good (though Morris isn't as tough as some other actors might have been in this role), the action and stunts, pretty amazing. Worth seeing...but far from a must-see.