Kailansorac Clever, believable, and super fun to watch. It totally has replay value.

Humaira Grant It’s not bad or unwatchable but despite the amplitude of the spectacle, the end result is underwhelming.

Deanna There are moments in this movie where the great movie it could've been peek out... They're fleeting, here, but they're worth savoring, and they happen often enough to make it worth your while.

Francene Odetta It's simply great fun, a winsome film and an occasionally over-the-top luxury fantasy that never flags.

JohnHowardReid Executive producer: Alan Ladd. A Jaguar Production. Copyright 1960 by Jaguar Films. Released through Warner Bros. No New York opening. U.S. release: March 1960. U.K. release: May 1960. Australian release: 25 August 1960. Running times: 93 minutes (Aust), 91 minutes (USA), 88 minutes (UK). NOTES: Location scenes filmed in Northern California. Film debuts of rock star Frankie Avalon, and Alan Ladd's daughter Alana. COMMENT: Disregarding Ladd's jaded appearance, Guns of the Timberland is pretty much a typical Ladd vehicle. This time our hero sees the error of his logging ways and comes down firmly on the side of the environmentalists. This action is not only the catalyst for Romance (in the person of Jeanne Crain, looking very beautiful here) but Conflict with his longtime partner and friend, forcefully yet sympathetically played here by Gilbert Roland. A fair amount of action ensues, culminating in a rip-roaring forest fire.A surprise was my belated discovery that the film was supposed to be set in 1895. I thought it was more or less contemporary. There's no period flavor about the movie at all. The costumes, the props, the furnishings could pass for backwoods modern. Mr. Avalon even has a couple of songs that certainly do not jive with 1895!In addition to Mr. Roland and Miss Crain, it's always good to see Lyle Bettger. Producer Ladd doubtless cast him in the movie because of his small size, but he's big enough to run rings around Alan in the acting department. His role is comparatively small and not exactly characteristic (he's one of the goodies this time), but with his distinctive voice and forceful manner, he's a guy you remember long after Ladd's more routine dramatics have faded from memory. The director is at his best in the action spots. These are suspensefully staged. Production values also benefit from extensive location lensing. I love the conclusion on the logging train when Ladd's companions snatch up Miss Crain and the ensemble steams off into the distance to a rousing chorus of "Cry Timber". This is the sort of stuff that director Webb does best -- including of course that frighteningly realistic forest fire in which both Ladd and Roland seem to be doing their own death-defying stunts. They're both braver men than I am, that's for sure!

Robert J. Maxwell Conflict between newly arrived team of reckless loggers, led by Ladd, and the peaceful folk of the town, led by Craine, whose livelihoods will be ruined if the loggers remove the trees and the top soil that animates the town's economy.It's routine without being bad. Most of the characters are fleshed out, some capable of moral growth, except Paul Anka maybe, who plumb can't act. Unexpected developments: good old reliable bad guy, Lyle Boettiger, turns out to be on the side of the angles, and reckless testosterone-ridden Gilbert Roland is a traitor to the evolving cause. What makes it sad is that Ladd was still soldiering on in these uninteresting vehicles. I like Ladd. He was GOOD in "Shane", so much so that it's difficult imagining someone else in the role. He was doing liquor and barbiturates at this point, and his features were sufficiently puffed that when he was forced to smile, his round cheeks and prominent incisors evoked a chipmonk.

zardoz-13 Unlike the other reviewers of this abysmal western, I have read the Louis L'Amour source novel, and I found this adaptation deplorable. "Beneath the 12 Mile Reef" director Robert Webb doesn't fare as well here as he did with one of the first Cinemascope films. Primarily, Aaron "Love Boat" Spelling is to blame for this mediocre adaptation. The license that he has taken is enough to rile any ardent Louis L'Amour aficionado. Spelling has added characters that never appeared in the novel. The pugnacious Gilbert Roland character Monte, who is partners with Ladd, didn't even exist in the novel. Furthermore, neither does Frankie Avalon's warbling errand boy who delivers merchandise for the local general store when his girlfriend isn't making life troublesome for him. Perhaps the biggest change that Spelling made was turning the dastardly lumberjack leader from the novel into the hero of the film. The cattle rancher and the town citizens have little respect for the Ladd hero. Actually, the timberjack character in the novel does everything but twirl his mustache. Indeed, he is thoroughly ruthless about getting the timber logged. Furthermore, Spelling has lightened the violence considerably. Cattle rancher Clay Bell is wounded in one scene and has to recover while two of his cow hands are beaten brutally in town. In the film, the Alan Ladd hero is named Jim Hadley, but in the novel he is named Jud Devitt, and he is an unsavory gent to the hilt. Interestingly enough, Spelling and "Proud Rebel" co-scribe Joseph Petracca kept rancher Clay Bell's name intact. Nevertheless, the Lyle Bettger character barely resembles his combative counterpart in the novel. Bell does stall the lumberjacks at the entrance to his property. Ladd is allowed a romantic interest (Jeanne Crain) whereas his evil counterpart in the novel lost the girl. Moreover, the Ladd hero knows what he is beaten in the movie and leaves town on a train with his lumberjacks with him.Altogether, "Guns of the Timberlands" doesn't do justice to the Louis L'Amour novel, and it seems pretty lame for a horse opera. The premise is refreshing enough. Instead of cattlemen clashing with sheep herders, the cattle man tangle with timberjacks.

Matthew_Capitano Dud logging story about a land developer who meets the usual resistance from uncooperative locals.Alan Ladd shows up looking gayer than usual, Jeanne Crain resembles a porn actress, and Frankie Avalon-- Frankie Avalon?! What the hell is he doing in this movie? Don't tell me he's gonna sing... yep, he does. I was afraid of that. Gilbert Roland is on hand to offer some of his patented charisma, but it's all for nothing because this film sucks.Devoid of atmosphere with amateurish mistakes like opening the film with a chorus singing a song which would be more at home in a fairy tale about Snow White. This movie falls flat... TIM-BER!!!