HotToastyRag
Whoever thought the beautiful, sexy Susan Hayward would start her career playing a character named "Butch"? In The Forest Rangers, she's not the romantic lead. Paulette Goddard is the beautiful love interest to forest ranger Fred MacMurray, with masculine Susan Hayward waiting in the wings. This love triangle is amusing enough to justify renting this movie, so if you're as much a Susan Hayward fan as I am, I recommend watching it one afternoon for a good laugh.With tons of special effects combined with real footage of forest fires and controlled burns, The Forest Rangers is a pretty impressive movie for 1942. Stunt doubles are used and abused, and the blue-screen effect is very well edited for the time period. The plot is interesting and fast-paced, and there's both a surprise and a good laugh in the end. It's a little more light-hearted than you'd expect, but it's pretty cute. Plus there's a funny scene between Fred MacMurray and Eugene Pallette straight out of any classic comedy: Fred has been out all night with Paulette, Eugene's daughter, and neither man knows who the other is. So, while Eugene is laughing about Fred's conquest, he has no idea that the girl in question is his daughter!
phil_sexton-30887
I was a forest ranger for over 30 years, so I have a special affinity for this film professionally, but I've also loved old films for nearly my entire life, so I also love this as a glorious misfire.The cast and crew are sterling. George Marshall directed. Fred MacMurray, Paulette Goddard, Susan Hayward, Eugene Paulette, Regis Toomey and lots of the Paramount stock company such as Jimmy Conlin and Albert Dekker, wonderful photography, high production values, cooperation from USDA Forest Service; first use of a song that would become an ersatz standard, what could possibly go wrong?I think that it's horribly miscast, for starters. Paulette Goddard was at her most beautiful in 1941 when this was shot, but her character is so whiny and self centered that it's really difficult to see what the Ranger finds attractive about her. And if you think that Susan Hayward and her upper crust accent and clipped phrasing could possibly be a timber beast somewhere in the mountains, then you're delusional.Marshall's direction really confuses me. He was a great talent and made many wonderful films, but he apparently couldn't decide if this film was a melodrama, romance, spectacle, slapstick film or murder mystery. It tries to be all things, but doesn't work at any of them very well.Warning: Spoilers and plot points trickle out below: Still, it's fun to watch. The fire scenes are amazing; I've watched this repeatedly for over twenty years yet I'm still trying to figure out how they were staged. The locations are amazing, ranging from the Ranger Station at Big Basin State Park in the coast redwoods near Santa Cruz to what seems to be some pine forests in the Shasta Trinity NF, some 250 miles northeast, Ranger Fred has one heckuva lot of acreage to take care of.There's also a really bizarre sort of subplot involving a retired logger, "Jammer," who takes care of the rangers and the ranger station. To watch Jimmy Conlin essentially bitching off Paulette Goddard about her marrying Ranger Fred while cleaning up the living quarters, and to literally exclaim "What's he need a wife for when he's got me?" with a name like 'Jammer' is just way too weird to take seriously in the 1940s.Smoke jumpers were relatively new in 1941, and Paramount made sure to show this new firefighting technique off; indeed, it's central to the plot, but when Ranger Fred isn't jumping out of planes or preaching the virtues of sustained yield, he's too dense to be properly hit on by Susan Hayward and oblivious to his spoiled brat of a wife who is trying to take him out of the woods. Only extreme melodrama can save the day, and indeed, a murder-arson mystery is thrown in just to give the filmmakers something else entirely to work with.The film ends so abruptly that it reminds me of an old joke I used to hear about what you do when writing a short story and you run out of inspiration-- you just have everyone get run over by a truck. That's not what literally happens here, but it's just about as subtle. Bosley Crowther, in his NYT review, called the film "Technicolor Arson" which seems to sum it all up pretty well.I've not found anything definitive about its business, but suffice it to say that it was not one of Paramount's top grossers in 1942, and in its re-release in the mid-1950s, it was at the bottom of a double bill. Maybe on its first release it got lost in the confusion of the first months of WWII, but it really is in so many ways, a really stupid film, albeit a great deal of fun. I'm pretty sure that movie- goers in early 1942 had much more important things on their minds.
bkoganbing
Playing the title role of The Forest Rangers is Fred MacMurray who has both romance and an arsonist on his hands. He's got logging camp owner Susan Hayward kind of pining after him, but he gets good and swept off his feet when eastern tenderfoot Paulette Goddard comes out west with her rich dad Eugene Palette on vacation.Palette who plays a milder version of his Seth Bullock from My Man Godfrey seems grateful to MacMurray for taking her off his hands. But Hayward gets quite a jolt as does everyone around as all assumed sooner or later MacMurray would be hitched with Sue. Hayward's not giving up either.The scenes out in the woods are handled expertly by George Marshall. One of the funniest sequences I've ever seen in a Marshall film is when the stars are out on a river trying to cross it with the logs. Tenderfoot Goddard gets in trouble and MacMurray and Hayward are just as funny, but not so much help in the end trying to get her across. As for the arsonist we get quite the red herring here. But when the arsonist is finally revealed you won't believe the motive.I saw The Forest Rangers years ago and just saw it again for purposes of this review. The color cinematography looked kind of washed out and the sound wasn't the best. Hopefully this is a film that is a priority for restoration.The song Jingle Jangle Jingle came from this film and it made a mint of money for its composers Joe Lilley and Frank Loesser. The Merry Macs had a big hit record for Decca back in the day.Hopefully in the future we'll get treated to a restored version of The Forest Rangers.
guil fisher
Seeing Fred MacMurray, Paulette Goddard and Susan Hayward in this rousing gorgeous technicolor movie was great fun. Story of a Forest Ranger (MacMurray), being chased by the beautiful but butch lumber mill owner (Hayward), and then meeting and falling in love at first sight with a rich girl (Goddard) makes the triangle perfect. Guy marries girl and the fun begins as the vixen tries to woo him back. Funny scene when the three of them are stranded in the woods and have to spend the night with one blanket to share between them.Excellent forest fire scenes filmed by director Marshall. Climatic final scenes when the fire starter is surprisingly revealed and Goddard and Hayward, caught in the midst of the blazing woods, have to survive. Excellent dramatic footage of the fire and comedy of situation make this great movie fare. With today's films this one done in the early 40s still holds it's own.
