WasAnnon Slow pace in the most part of the movie.

Mehdi Hoffman There's a more than satisfactory amount of boom-boom in the movie's trim running time.

Sienna-Rose Mclaughlin The movie really just wants to entertain people.

Quiet Muffin This movie tries so hard to be funny, yet it falls flat every time. Just another example of recycled ideas repackaged with women in an attempt to appeal to a certain audience.

JohnHowardReid Executive producer: Alan Ladd. A Jaguar Production. Copyright 1960 by Jaguar Films. Released through Warner Bros. No New York opening. U.S. release: March 1960. U.K. release: May 1960. Australian release: 25 August 1960. Running times: 93 minutes (Aust), 91 minutes (USA), 88 minutes (UK). NOTES: Location scenes filmed in Northern California. Film debuts of rock star Frankie Avalon, and Alan Ladd's daughter Alana. COMMENT: Disregarding Ladd's jaded appearance, Guns of the Timberland is pretty much a typical Ladd vehicle. This time our hero sees the error of his logging ways and comes down firmly on the side of the environmentalists. This action is not only the catalyst for Romance (in the person of Jeanne Crain, looking very beautiful here) but Conflict with his longtime partner and friend, forcefully yet sympathetically played here by Gilbert Roland. A fair amount of action ensues, culminating in a rip-roaring forest fire.A surprise was my belated discovery that the film was supposed to be set in 1895. I thought it was more or less contemporary. There's no period flavor about the movie at all. The costumes, the props, the furnishings could pass for backwoods modern. Mr. Avalon even has a couple of songs that certainly do not jive with 1895!In addition to Mr. Roland and Miss Crain, it's always good to see Lyle Bettger. Producer Ladd doubtless cast him in the movie because of his small size, but he's big enough to run rings around Alan in the acting department. His role is comparatively small and not exactly characteristic (he's one of the goodies this time), but with his distinctive voice and forceful manner, he's a guy you remember long after Ladd's more routine dramatics have faded from memory. The director is at his best in the action spots. These are suspensefully staged. Production values also benefit from extensive location lensing. I love the conclusion on the logging train when Ladd's companions snatch up Miss Crain and the ensemble steams off into the distance to a rousing chorus of "Cry Timber". This is the sort of stuff that director Webb does best -- including of course that frighteningly realistic forest fire in which both Ladd and Roland seem to be doing their own death-defying stunts. They're both braver men than I am, that's for sure!

Robert J. Maxwell Conflict between newly arrived team of reckless loggers, led by Ladd, and the peaceful folk of the town, led by Craine, whose livelihoods will be ruined if the loggers remove the trees and the top soil that animates the town's economy.It's routine without being bad. Most of the characters are fleshed out, some capable of moral growth, except Paul Anka maybe, who plumb can't act. Unexpected developments: good old reliable bad guy, Lyle Boettiger, turns out to be on the side of the angles, and reckless testosterone-ridden Gilbert Roland is a traitor to the evolving cause. What makes it sad is that Ladd was still soldiering on in these uninteresting vehicles. I like Ladd. He was GOOD in "Shane", so much so that it's difficult imagining someone else in the role. He was doing liquor and barbiturates at this point, and his features were sufficiently puffed that when he was forced to smile, his round cheeks and prominent incisors evoked a chipmonk.

MartinHafer Aside from a plot that would become more and more relevant as the decade progressed as well as a chance to see Alan Ladd's daughter, Alana, I can't see much about this dull little film that would encourage me to recommend it or see it again. Like most of Alan Ladd's later films, it's very listless and dull. Plus, I really am not sure what the message was nor do I think the folks making the film knew either.The film begins with some loggers coming to clear the land. However, the locals are very unhappy as they are concerned about the ecological effects this might have on the town below. This is understandable. However, instead of trying to work with the loggers or go through the courts to stop them, some of the locals (led by Lyle Bettger and Jeanne Craine) decide that pretty much anything is fair to stop the tree cutting. During most of the town's dirty tricks, the boss of the logging outfit (Ladd) is amazingly complacent. In fact, this is his mood through almost all the film--like he's only semi-conscious. As a result, one of his men, Monty (Gilbert Roland) has had enough and has decided to fight fire with fire, so to speak. Then, and only then, does the boss rouse out of his near slumber.I know it might sound rather nasty, but at this point in his career, Alan Ladd was a hard-core alcoholic. Because of this, he began to look puffy and his acting became much more muted and slow. I really think this is a serious problem in "Guns of the Timberland". However, it's NOT the biggest problem. This problem is the writing. The film doesn't seem to know WHAT the message is and many of the characters are, as a result, very inconsistent. Too often, folks behave in ways that defy common sense as well as who they have been throughout the film--particularly Ladd and Craine. Overall, the film is sluggish and dull and this is rather sad, as in his prime, Ladd was an exciting actor. Here, he's as dull as dish water.

bkoganbing Kirk Douglas said the worst film he ever did was The Big Trees, in fact he did it for no salary in order to buy his way out of a Warner Brothers contract. Like Guns Of The Timberland, it's a logging story and was a bad step in the career of both stars.The problem with Alan Ladd, producer and star of Guns Of The Timberland was that there weren't too many steps left for him. Douglas did his timber disaster at the beginning of his career, Ladd towards the end.Ladd and Gilbert Roland are partners in a timber concern and they've got a contract to cut logs in the territory of Jeanne Crain's ranch. The problem for Jeanne and the rest of the valley is that it will leave no watershed for flooding and as her foreman Lyle Bettger so aptly puts it, her cattle will be eating mud next year.Of course the sight of Jeanne in a nice tight fitting cowgirl outfit was enough to make Ladd only concerned about one log in his life. But Roland wants to fight and therein lies the conflict.Like Douglas in The Big Trees, Ladd's conversion to the cause of environmentalism is a bit too unconvincing. And Gilbert Roland going berserk is not the Gilbert Roland I'm used to on the screen. I really hated him in this and Gilbert Roland is one of my favorite players.Ladd produced as well as starred in Guns Of The Timberland and in order to get a little box office from the young, he had current teen heart throb Frankie Avalon make his screen debut opposite his own daughter Alana. I don't think Frankie got any big hit records out of Guns Of The Timberland, he did sing two forgettable songs here.But this was not the worst film Alan Ladd made. That would be next year in Duel Of The Champions, but he was definitely tobogganing down career wise in Guns Of The Timberland.