THUNDER IN THE PINES (1948)

Director: Robert Edwards

Writers: Jo Pagano, Maurice Tombragel

Producer: William Stephens

Cast: George Reeves, Ralph Byrd, Lyle Talbot, Denise Darcel, Marion Martin (as Marian Martin), Greg McClure, Michael Whalen, Vince Barnett, Roscoe Ates, Tom Kennedy, (and uncredited cast) Frank Hagney, Milicent Patrick, Arno Tanney, Jack Tornek, Joey Ray 

Wartime buddies Jeff Collins (George Reeves) and ‘Boomer’ Benson (Ralph Byrd) are now northern Wisconsin lumberjack foremen. Each of them has been secretly corresponding with a girl that they met in France during the war. When French beauty Yvette Cheron (Denise Darcel) meets both men at the Osega town train station, Collins and Benson realize that they are both after the same woman. Shifty, local businessman Nick Roulade (Lyle Talbot) has recently hired Collins and Benson separately to harvest the pines on different halves of his land. The two logging pals have become competitors to deliver the timber from their assigned areas by an April 1st deadline. The winner of the competition will not only win a bonus; he will also win the hand of the flirtatious Yvette. 

The Flashback Fanatic movie review 

There are some movies that seem to have trouble fitting neatly into a genre. Those are often highfalutin dramas that usually deal with heavy issues, and an audience will only line up for them when household names take the starring roles. However, some oddball B films never intended to be anything more than light entertainment while somehow avoiding common genre classifications. One would think that a modest production would need to push an obvious and exploitable genre to hook an audience needing a reliable fix from a certain kind of story. Moviegoers will not need big production values or major stars if there is an intriguing mystery to solve, a criminal gang to defeat, a monster to destroy, or an Old West town to clean up. One then has to wonder just what was the intent behind Thunder in the Pines. 

I was surprised to learn that there have been over forty films about lumberjacks. During the first half of the 20th century, this line of work must have been widespread enough to get the attention of filmmakers. Still, lumberjacks were hardly the basis for a thriving film genre. Western, horror, and crime pictures would have seemed to be much safer and easier fare for the low-budget filmmaker to market. 

Nevertheless, Robert L. Lippert’s Screen Guild Productions (soon to be renamed Lippert Pictures) must have decided that the off-the-beaten-path environment and situations of Northwoods logging would provide an interesting backdrop for some macho shenanigans. In those days there also seemed to be more of an interest for wilderness-based adventures. Lippert must have been pretty enthusiastic about Thunder in the Pines to go to the trouble of having it made with sepia-tone prints. 

The obscure Thunder in the Pines is chiefly remembered for starring George Reeves. Prior to this film, Reeves had a long string of roles in B films and notable appearances in a few prestigious pictures. Early in his career, Reeves had the small role as one of the Tarleton twins in one of the most famous films of all time, Gone with the Wind (1939). Just before his military service, he starred in 1943’s Oscar-nominated, World War II drama So Proudly We Hail! After the wartime service interruption of his career, George Reeves was back to B films. This was frustrating for Reeves because his acting career seemed to be a casualty of bad timing. When he made Thunder in the Pines, Reeves was just three years away from becoming famous as Clark Kent/Superman in Superman and the Mole-Men (1951), which led to the Adventures of Superman television series (1952-1958). Despite landing a small role in the Oscar-winning From Here to Eternity (1953), Reeves was typecast as the Man of Steel for the rest of his life. 

Reeves’ co-star, Ralph Byrd, was another B film veteran that had already become famous for portraying a comic strip hero. Byrd had made many appearances in small and supporting roles in movies throughout the 1930s. His claim to fame was starring in film adaptations of Chester Gould’s detective newspaper strip, Dick Tracy. Beginning in 1937, Byrd starred as Tracy in four Republic Pictures serials, two RKO Radio Pictures feature films, and 48 episodes of the Dick Tracy ABC television series (1950-51). Byrd also starred in other serials including another adaptation of a hero from the comics. Columbia Pictures’ serial The Vigilante (1947) had Byrd playing the masked, motorcycle-riding, crime-fighting cowboy published by DC Comics. 

Producer William Stephens had already co-starred George Reeves and Ralph Byrd earlier the same year in Jungle Goddess (1948). There they also played two pals that wind up pitted against each other. That previous film was a pretty dull jungle flick that gave actors Reeves and Byrd just a bit more dramatic meat to gnaw on, but it did not allow them any of the rambunctious fun found here. For Thunder in the Pines, they play wartime chums that became peacetime lumberjacking partners goaded into competing against each other for love and money. Reeves and Byrd approach their roles with gung-ho enthusiasm that adds a lightly comedic edge to their mutual antagonism. 

Stephens’ unfulfilled intention was to keep these two actors as a team in a succession of pictures. With the previous film set in the African jungle, Thunder in the Pines located in the Northwoods, and a third movie planned to take place in South America, perhaps the intent at the time was to make the Reeves/Byrd duo the low-budget-adventure-film answer to the Bob Hope/Bing Crosby team in their “Road” pictures. Thunder in the Pines is certainly not intent on being as satirical and musical as the “Road” films, but it features plenty of light-hearted conflict set in an unusual locale. 

The draw for today’s movie buffs seeking out this film is seeing Superman vs. Dick Tracy. Since neither Reeves’ Jeff Collins nor Byrd’s ‘Boomer’ Benson have any super powers, it should be a fair fight. The story begins with these two pals slugging each other in a barroom. This maniacal, manly fun is only interrupted when they pause to ogle shapely, blonde Pearl (Marion Martin) strutting into the tavern. Then they make a note to one another to resume their brawl at a later date and have at their beers. Throughout this film, Collins and Benson are on the verge of pummeling each other at every opportunity. 

One may wonder where hardworking lumberjacks find the energy to waste clobbering each other for kicks in their down time, especially as we see plenty of tree-cutting action without a single chainsaw to be found. Well, that’s easy for Collins and Benson, since they are the logging ramrods just barking orders all day at their men who are doing all of the grunt work. 

In the small logging town of Osega, it seems that there is nothing to do but work, drink, and fight. All work and no play make lumberjacks punch drunk. One magical aspect of this little burg is that the few women who ever set foot in town are always knockouts that can break up the monotony of beer and brawling for our heroes. 

Marion Martin, as Pearl, is my favorite character in this thing. I suppose you are all probably thinking that just makes me a lech. Hardly. I’m a lech and a lush, so there! Martin was the sexy garnish to many cinematic concoctions throughout the ’30s and ’40s. Here in Thunder in the Pines, Martin gets some of the best lines and makes adlib mixology simple and dangerous. I guess if I were going to die of alcohol poisoning, it might go down easier if my bartender looked like Marion Martin. 

Pearl sashays into Osega, Wisconsin to hook up again with Nick Roulade, owner of the town’s tavern and large swaths of the surrounding woodland. B movie stalwart Lyle Talbot plays Roulade. Talbot was a familiar face as an up-and-coming star during the ’30s at Warner Brothers, a very busy character actor in films of the ’40s and ’50s, and a prolific television performer. His Nick Roulade certainly qualifies as the heel in Thunder in the Pines. Not only does Roulade cheat at cards and try swindling the two lumberjacking partners he has pitted against each other, he slobbers all over the luscious Pearl that has come carrying a torch for him all the way from Chicago to be his barmaid. I can’t say I blame the guy, but then Nick Roulade immediately fixates on the very next nubile visitor to Osega. 

Once Yvette Cheron rolls into this little logging town, the greed and gonads get out of control. Yvette seems to enjoy wrapping every guy’s woody around her little finger. She knowingly encourages Jeff Collins and ‘Boomer’ Benson to compete for her. However, she is all too aware of the interest Nick Roulade has also taken in her. Yup, she’s a beautiful, bad influence. French actress Denise Darcel plays her without a sense of malice, but she sure can be fickle. Darcel first caught my eye as the voluptuous spitfire Lola in Tarzan and the Slave Girl (1950). 

Apparently, a town as small as Osega can only make room for visitors if they are gorgeous gals. Milicent Patrick plays the last of the only three women we ever meet in Osega. She’s the beautiful brunette in black that drops in at the film’s finale. Patrick was a model, a bit player in films, and had occasional guest roles in television series, but she made her greatest filmic impact as an artist. She had worked in animation for Walt Disney Productions. Later, Patrick would become involved in special effects makeup at Universal Studios and designed such famous movie monsters as the alien of It Came from Outer Space (1953) and the Gill-man of Creature from the Black Lagoon (1954). 

Thunder in the Pines succeeds almost entirely because of this interesting cast. It has the added eccentricities of our two heroes’ manic behavior and the unusual locale where they brawl and bicker. Since this is all tossed off with a light touch, it makes an amusing, offbeat oddity for B film fans. So, button up your flannel shirts and pour yourself a cold one to get braced for this lumberjack lunacy. Timberrr!!!

This post was contributed to The 2nd Annual 'Favorite Stars in B Movies' Blogathon hosted at Films From Beyond the Time Barrier.