God's Country and the Woman

A year after Paramount did its first outdoor color feature, The Trail Of The Lonesome Pine, Warner Brothers shot this film entirely on location in the timber country of the State of Washington. God's Country And The Woman is about two feuding timber families and the head of one family trying to crush the other.

But Robert Barrat has more than getting rid of Beverly Roberts and her holdings on his mind. He's got a lazy irresponsible playboy brother in the person of George Brent who spends the money as fast as Bob can cut down the trees to make it.

Through a combination of circumstances that you have to watch God's Country And The Woman for, Brent winds up working for the opposition and wooing Beverly Roberts. I don't think I have to tell you how all this turn's out.

Brent's playing a part that probably was originally written with Errol Flynn in mind, in fact I think the project was conceived for Errol Flynn and Olivia DeHavilland. Bette Davis turned this one down also and went on suspension. So the B team of George Brent and Beverly Roberts was brought in.

On the plus side the camera work in this film is superb. The footage was used many times over by Warner Brothers. Though not credited here, I recognize some of it from their later logging story from the Fifties, The Big Trees.

The story however may have been a little too overplotted and Robert Barrat does an about face in character and motivation that one does not see coming in any way.

Good scenery of the great Pacific Northwest and excellent background shooting of the work of the lumberjacks. Sad though that it's tied to a rather pedestrian tale.