Highly Overrated But Still Good

Entertaining from beginning to end, it maintains the spirit of the franchise while establishing it's own seal with a fun cast

The movie really just wants to entertain people.

There are moments that feel comical, some horrific, and some downright inspiring but the tonal shifts hardly matter as the end results come to a film that's perfect for this time.

There are many great elements of this very outdoorsy romantic adventure that focuses on the logging industry. Put it in color and add some great character performers and you've got a film that is very much worth seeing even though it is far from perfect. Two of prime-time sitcom's most notorious cranks, Agnes Moorehead and William Demarest, steal without guilt every scene they are in, playing off each other wonderfully. They are joined by Suzan Morrow as Moorehead's niece and John Payne as a logging foreman, as well as veteran star Richard Arlen as a rival of Payne's. In the opening scene, Morrow slaps Moorehead, and I'm surprised she lived to talk about it. Morrow is a big city gal raised by Moorehead and her late husband and easily manipulated her aunt into agreeing to sell off her lumber so she can leave the sticks behind. This is where old man Demarest comes in, putting up the starting fee, while Payne takes on the job as head foreman with a crew that already hated him. Veteran character actor Roscoe Bates has a small part leaving out his stereotypical stutter. Demarest gets to show off his talents playing the musical saw. You might cover your ears in those scenes. I cringed with the chopping off each tree, but I understand that it had to be done to an extent. Seeknh the dangers involved in the logging industry increases tension, showing the power of nature over man. Fortunately, this film is deliciously colorful, and that makes it one difficult to remove your eyes from. I'm glad to have discovered a glorious print of it, and it's nice to see Moorehead in a leading part. In spite of its flaws, this is a film that I would have liked to have first seen on a big screen.

The logging industry gets a look in The Blazing Forest as Agnes Moorehead wants to sell off some timber acreage to give her niece Jo Morrow a start in life. For that reason she hires John Payne and Bill Demarest to bring in the logs. Demarest contributes the financing from a settlement involving a logging accident, but Payne is the hard driving crew chief of the loggers. He has a need for money and it has to do with a no good reprobate of a brother played by Richard Arlen.The film is shot in some nice color and the climax involving a forest fire is well staged. This Pine-Thomas B film from Paramount is a credit to all involved in the making.

This begins tolerably well since the focus is on the ever-reliable Agnes Moorehead who, needing money to send her niece to the city, decides to sell off 200 acres of timber on her land in Nevada. Moorehead hires John Payne to oversee the work. Yes, he's tough and irascible and hard-driving -- maybe too hard-driving -- but he'll get the job done. Payne hires a ragtag group of timberjacks and the set-up is complete.Unfortunately, the story at this point drifts into "personal drama." One of the timberjacks knows Payne from "way back" and they obvious have a troubling history and Payne grows to resent the way this timberjack begins to woo Moorehead's niece. None of this is particularly compelling and it leaves a dead spot in the middle of the movie.Things pick up toward the end with the Big Forest Fire but the movie never quite gets back to the modest but encouraging promise it showed in its opening reel.Note to fans of John Payne's chest -- and they are legion! -- despite all that hard, sweaty work involved in chopping down trees, he never once takes his shirt off.

The strong performances of Agnes Moorehead as a widowed country land owner and William Demarest as her suitor are the best things in this colorful adventure, which stars John Payne. Some familiar supporting players also help move the movie along, and Susan Morrow plays Miss Moorehead's niece,and Mr Payne's love interest, of course. There is logging scenes, wide open country shots, and as the title implies, a big fire. A fairly good 90 minute 'B' movie action adventure (good drive-in material).