Thunder in the Pines (1948)

Posted on Aug 22, 2007 under Action-suspense |

Directed by Robert Edwards
Written by Maurice Tombragel
Starring
- George Reeves
- Ralph Byrd
- Greg McClure
- Michael Whalen
- Denise Darcel

Here’s a description you rarely hear me use: “A nice little movie.” Little, naturally, because it was a B-movie in the technical sense: cheap and professional, meant to fill the second half of a double bill. But “nice”? Try as I might, I can’t think of a better single-word description. I could also call it lighthearted and easygoing, humorous without being desperate, moderately engaging without being demanding, featuring likeable good guys and even likeable bad guys. But all of that boils down to one little word, “nice,” and I’m okay with that.

“Say… we haven’t gotten a phonebooth in town yet, have we?”

A large part of the character of the movie depends on the quiet charisma of its two leads. George Reeves, three years before he dawned the long blue underwear and red cape, and Ralph Byrd, eleven years after he started playing Dick Tracy in a string of features and serials, are Jeff and Boomer, a couple of war buddies turned loggers in the Pacific Northwest. They’re the kind of guys who pay for each other’s drinks and punch each other’s guts, and who won’t let anyone come between them even while they’re trying to take each other down. They are also, despite their roughhousing, a couple of the best men in town, and their service are sought by Nick (Lyle Talbot), well-to-do local logging speculator. At present, they’re both content instead to drink at Nick’s bar and lose money in Nick’s crooked poker games.

Independently, though, Jeff and Boomer each have a reason to start building a nest-egg for a more settled life. Unfortunately, each of them has the same reason: a French tart named Yvette (Denise Darcel). (Either it’s never spelled out, or I just missed it, whether Yvette is a straight mail-order bride, or whether the boys became acquainted with her during the War. With Nick’s reference to Jeff and Boomer as ex-GI’s early on, I’m going to guess that contemporary audiences would have assumed the latter.) She’s been writing to both, sending pictures to both, and promising her hand to both. So after the two of them together turn down Nick’s offer to be a camp boss, they each sneak back to accept the offer alone. Except they do it at the same time. So Nick gives each of them a logging spread on either side of a river fork, and promises a $1000 bonus to the man who can bring in the full quota first before April.

“Oh, good — we can bump the story on Mr. McGillicuddy’s stolen socks to page 2!”

And when Yvette arrives by train, the ante gets upped; neither knew she was playing the field until they both show up at the platform (and I love the era-specific fact that a couple of bachelor loggers in a rough town will nevertheless own nice suits for special occasions), and she coyly holds off committing to either suitor, declaring instead that she’ll marry the one who wins Nick’s competition. Because nothing forms the basis of a good marriage like a wager.

That certainly adds spice to the competition, so Jeff and Boomer immediately round up men and start logging — or rather, they each start parading around on flour-dusted landscape sets in front of rear-screen projection footage of logging activity. I can’t fault the production too much, as most of the drama really takes place in the barroom or various other lodgings and offices around town; and if, as I suspect, the entire movie was produced simply because one of the producers got his hand on a variety of logging footage, then this is certainly one of the better little films strung together to take advantage of stock footage. It ain’t fooling nobody, but there’s just enough logging footage to give a flavor for the labor, and not enough to make the audience squirm in their seats at the obvious padding.

“Cool down, Nick. Your hair wax is beginning to melt.

Not that you need much padding to fill out a 60-minute B-feature, especially when you’ve got the ingredients in place for some low-key drama. Jeff and Boomer are competing for love and money; meanwhile, Nick’s trying to work a double-cross to allow him to benefit from their labor and keep the bonus for himself. Not only that, Nick wouldn’t mind keeping Yvette too, who’s stuck around town working in his bar (and attracting probably even more clients than the liquor alone would have). Yvette’s enough of a gold-digger to be very interested in the wealthiest man in the district, and experienced enough at how the game is played to keep the hooks set in all of her prospects. And her coquettery doesn’t escape the notice of Pearl (Marian Martin), Nick’s heretofore squeeze, who knows she’s getting old enough to be on the line between “pretty” and “handsome,” and doesn’t want some continental pastry breezing in and taking her place.

“Logs… chutes… kinda hard for me to keep my mind on the straight-and-narrow.”

Despite the opportunity for murder, mayhem, and all manner of discourtesy, the whole movie remains very civil, and even friendly. Despite the competition, Jeff and Boomer remain friends who drink together whenever in town; all of the women keep their virtue for as long as they want to; and the bar-busting four-way fistfight that ends off the movie is something directly out of a Saturdy-morning serial instead of a tense thriller about a romantic triangle.

And now, a scandalous peek at her armpit hair.¹

No doubt this feature, which has only just now been released on video for the first time in any format, would have remained ignored without the recent hoopla surrounding George Reeves stirred up by Hollywoodland (2006). But while the world is not a noticeably better place for its availability, neither is it in any way injured by it. Thunder in the Pines fulfills the same service as a good chain-store pizza, providing adequate and even fun sustenance while being consumed, though no one would feel the need to tell friends all about it the next day.

(Unless you’re me, in which case you try to tell the whole world.)