Guns of the Timberland

After watching yet another tinny product come off the Alan Ladd Western assembly line, accompanied by this factory's usual flaccid acting and writing and irrelevantly pretty cinematography, it's fair to ask if, aside from "Shane" or, if you're generous, "Badlanders", did this guy ever make a decent movie in this great genre? Cool flannel shirts, though. Wonder if Ladd got to keep 'em? Probably, since he was the co producer of this turkey, (along with future and eternal schlockmeister, Aaron Spelling). C minus.

PS...Moss Grimmick (i.e. George Selk) with what looks to be a tomato and lettuce sandwich? Works for me.

A conflict boils over in a small western community between newly arrived loggers and the local ranchers. The lumberjacks led by Jim Hadley (Alan Ladd) are looking for new forest to cut while the ranchers fear the lost of the trees would lead to land degradation.

The most interesting name in the credits is Aaron Spelling. He's the writer and a producer. It's an early movie for him. It's interesting to see his work but it's hard to tell how much of it is on the screen. This is not breaking any new ground and is nothing to write home about. At least, it looks professional. It's old fashion and not that great.

The biggest name in the cast is Alan Ladd but the hottest name may be Frankie Avalon. Frankie sings a couple of songs. Alan is the lead and he gets to wear the one bright red shirt. Well, he does change shirt later on. It is interesting to see real man climbing up the trees and doing old-style real logging. They are really cutting down trees for the movie. Logging is rarely done in movies and it's rarer still when they actually do it for real. That alone is probably worthwhile enough to watch this movie. The plot is another story. The directions are stiff and the pacing is a bit slow.

Kirk Douglas said the worst film he ever did was The Big Trees, in fact he did it for no salary in order to buy his way out of a Warner Brothers contract. Like Guns Of The Timberland, it's a logging story and was a bad step in the career of both stars.

The problem with Alan Ladd, producer and star of Guns Of The Timberland was that there weren't too many steps left for him. Douglas did his timber disaster at the beginning of his career, Ladd towards the end.

Ladd and Gilbert Roland are partners in a timber concern and they've got a contract to cut logs in the territory of Jeanne Crain's ranch. The problem for Jeanne and the rest of the valley is that it will leave no watershed for flooding and as her foreman Lyle Bettger so aptly puts it, her cattle will be eating mud next year.

Of course the sight of Jeanne in a nice tight fitting cowgirl outfit was enough to make Ladd only concerned about one log in his life. But Roland wants to fight and therein lies the conflict.

Like Douglas in The Big Trees, Ladd's conversion to the cause of environmentalism is a bit too unconvincing. And Gilbert Roland going berserk is not the Gilbert Roland I'm used to on the screen. I really hated him in this and Gilbert Roland is one of my favorite players.

Ladd produced as well as starred in Guns Of The Timberland and in order to get a little box office from the young, he had current teen heart throb Frankie Avalon make his screen debut opposite his own daughter Alana. I don't think Frankie got any big hit records out of Guns Of The Timberland, he did sing two forgettable songs here.

But this was not the worst film Alan Ladd made. That would be next year in Duel Of The Champions, but he was definitely tobogganing down career wise in Guns Of The Timberland.

I wanted to like this movie, but it was really a total mess. Alan Ladd had sadly lost his looks. He looked very tired, puffy, bloated, stiff and wooden. Seemed like he was just going through the motions. Frankie Avalon had his collar up and his hair in an Elvis cut without the sideburns. He looked like he belonged in a 1950s teenager rebelling flick and not a western. His acting was pleasant, but mediocre at best..Alana Ladd, Alan's daughter, at seventeen was cute enough to be Avalon's love interest, but the poor girl was not much of an actress and by twenty two her acting career was over. Only thing of any interest was the final show down between Ladd and Gilbert Roland using rifles.

Decent Alan Ladd vehicle about confrontation between ranchers and timbermen. A tough logger : Alan Ladd and his group : Gilbert Roland , Noah Beery Jr., among others, go to the outskirts of Deep Wells. There they contend a beautiful rancher: Jeanne Crain and her foreman : Lyle Bettger . The towners are opposed to trees cutting , thinking of falling trees would cause mudslide sweeping the buildings.

An exciting film in Western style about violent feud, thrills , action , fights and romance. Based on the novel by prolific Louis L'Amour , whose books have got several cinematic adaptations . Stars Alan Ladd gives a passable acting in his usual style , though he seems to be oldest than his true age : 46 at the time of shooting , that's why he was a real drunk, in fact he died early at 50 for mingling drinking and pills . He was already in his fall after his succesful films, especially in Film Noir, such as The Black Cat, The Glass Key, This Gun for Hire The Blue Dahlia, or other genres in movies as The Great Gastby , Botany Bay, Hell below Zero, The Black Night, The Badlanders and his bigh hit : Shane. While the always gorgeous Jeanne Crain is pretty well as her contender as well as her sweetheart . And a large support cast of notorious secondaries, such as : the teen idol Frankie Avalon playing some catching songs , Alana Ladd -Alan Ladd's daughter- as the sweet girlfriend , the ordinary baddie Lyle Bettger , the Latino Gilbert Roland, Noah Beery Jr as a sympathetc logger , Regis Toomey as a good-tempered Sheriff and Verna Felton as grumpy grandmother. It displays a colorful and brilliant cinematography in glimmer Technicolor. As well as a stirring and evocative musical score by David Buttolph adding the enjoyable songs performed by singer Frankie Avalon .

The picture produced by Jaguar Productions- Alan Ladd ownership- and Warner Bros , being professionally directed by Robert D Webb. The latter was a professional artisan, an expert craftsman, at the beginning he worked as a director assistant, producer and subsequently fimmaker. He directed all kinds of genres as Western : White Feather, The Proud ones, The Jackals and Adventures : Pirates of Tortuga, Seven Citirs of Gold, The Way of Gold and Noir : The Cape Town Affair, The Spider, The Caribbean Mystery. Although he also made documentary and TV episodes from known series as Daniel Boone, Rawhide, Temple Houston series. Rating 5.5/10. Acceptable and passable. Well worth watching for Alan Ladd and Jeanne Crain fans.