Paramount splashed a bit of cash with this - its got colour, extras, some forest fires. The film didn't quite work for me. The story is promising: Fred MacMurray is a forest ranger trying to figure out some arsonist, and also torn between two women, socialite Paulette Goddard and tomboy Susan Hayward.
But it didn't come together.
The arson mystery isn't much of a mystery: Albert Dekker is set up as the baddy and once Dekker is killed you know it's got to be Regis Toomey because Toomey is the only other character of substance.
Also the romance isn't much because I never believed that Goddard was into Fred MacMurray or that MacMurray didn't notice Hayward wanted him or that Hayward was into MacMurray or Hayward's villanousness. Compare with Orchestra Wives another woman-marries-man-she-just-met story: I believed that because Ann Rutherford was a small town gal and George Montgomer was so glamorous. Here Goddard is glamorous and MacMurray a fire due. I mean, they could have made it work showing Goddard's life to be shallow and full of weak men so she likes he man MacMurray but we start off the story from MacMurray's point of view.
The clash between Hayward and Goddard felt contrived, in part because Hayward is so stunning, and shot stunningly, she never seems like a tomboy. I mean, that flowing hair, come on...
Maybe the real issue for me with this film is casting. Possibly these problems would have gone away with, I don't know, Sterling Hayden or John Wayne or Joel McCrea in the MacMurray role... I didn't buy Uncle Fred as a macho dude. Maybe it was needing to see more from Goddard's POV to make clear why she'd go for him. Maybe it needed Hayward to be the baddy and to have Goddard more active, to give an extra dimension to Hayward's hostility.
There is a catchy song and it's cool that it is in colour.
No comments:
Post a Comment