ShangLuda Admirable film.

Catangro After playing with our expectations, this turns out to be a very different sort of film.

Adeel Hail Unshakable, witty and deeply felt, the film will be paying emotional dividends for a long, long time.

Darin One of the film's great tricks is that, for a time, you think it will go down a rabbit hole of unrealistic glorification.

HotToastyRag Whoever thought the beautiful, sexy Susan Hayward would start her career playing a character named "Butch"? In The Forest Rangers, she's not the romantic lead. Paulette Goddard is the beautiful love interest to forest ranger Fred MacMurray, with masculine Susan Hayward waiting in the wings. This love triangle is amusing enough to justify renting this movie, so if you're as much a Susan Hayward fan as I am, I recommend watching it one afternoon for a good laugh.With tons of special effects combined with real footage of forest fires and controlled burns, The Forest Rangers is a pretty impressive movie for 1942. Stunt doubles are used and abused, and the blue-screen effect is very well edited for the time period. The plot is interesting and fast-paced, and there's both a surprise and a good laugh in the end. It's a little more light-hearted than you'd expect, but it's pretty cute. Plus there's a funny scene between Fred MacMurray and Eugene Pallette straight out of any classic comedy: Fred has been out all night with Paulette, Eugene's daughter, and neither man knows who the other is. So, while Eugene is laughing about Fred's conquest, he has no idea that the girl in question is his daughter!

Alex da Silva Fred MacMurray (Don) is a forest ranger who works in a tight-nit forest ranger community that deals with the preservation of the forest and lots of fire-fighting. Particularly now that an arsonist is setting off fires. The local forest ranger girl is Susan Hayward (Tana) and although she is fondly nicknamed 'Butch', she definitely isn't. She sees MacMurray as her catch. However, one day at a parade in a local town, MacMurray meets and marries Paulette Goddard (Celia) before returning with her to his community. Everyone is shocked. And Hayward is not happy… The film is shot in Technicolour which adds to the enjoyment and the cast are good although I wish retired ranger Lynne Overman (Jammer) spoke properly. WTF is he saying? We get a mystery as to who is starting deliberate fires played alongside some comical situations as Goddard and Hayward spar with each other. And it's all good entertainment. This film was better than I expected. MacMurray leaves me indifferent, rather like his attitude towards both these women in his life. The interest in the film comes from the 2 female leads. There is also the bonus of hearing snippets of the song "Jingle Jangle Jingle" at various moments. Always nice to hear a tune. Can you guess who the arsonist is? I doubt it.If you look at the credits you will notice a Keith Richards in the role of a Ranger. That guy really has had a varied life. This was in the days before he plugged in a guitar and joined the Rolling Stones and then fell out of a mango tree.

mark.waltz As likable as a good old fashioned log roll, this outdoor adventure yarn of human Smokey the Bears is fun from start to finish, featuring a cast to die for. Fred MacMurray is a forest ranger investigating a series of obvious arson related forest fires who married socialite childhood sweetheart Paulette Goddard in spite of the fact that his colleagues believes that he's going to get hitched to his tomboy boss "Butch" (Susan Hayward). The jilted Hayward isn't pleased at all, arranging for the three of them to spend the honeymoon night "bundling" (using body heat to keep warm outdoors) after a minor car mishap arranged by her. But Hayward shouldn't underestimate her big city rival, especially when the three of them do accidentally get caught on a long roll.Mixing comedy, action and romance, this is pure and simple fun. Eugene Palette, Regis Toomey, Lynne Overman and Albert Dekker are also caught up in the intrigue which results in a thrilling final where city slicker Goddard and tough country gal Hayward come to an "understanding". Their re-teaming after the same year's "Reap the Wild Wind" is a bit closer to Goddard's catfight with Rosalind Russell in "The Women".There's also an exciting look at how the log industry works, with Goddard getting in the way at some precarious moments. As for Hayward, her loveliness can't be hidden underneath all of her masculine duds not matter how "butch" she seems. Palette is very funny as Goddard's cranky father glad to be rid of her. The color photography makes this truly a vision, and a Frank Loesser song, "I've Got Spurs That Jingle, Jangle Jingle" is a simplistic delight.

JLRMovieReviews Fred MacMurray is a forest ranger, obviously, and Susan Hayward is the woman he loves. Correction: she loves him, and he treats her like one of the boys. He later meets Paulette Goddard, and they get hitched, supplying the plot of rivalry between Susan and Paulette. Costarring Regis Toomey and Brian Donlevy, this movie contains a mixture of light comedy and soap opera-ish drama, making it a cross between the TV show "Dallas" and Carol Burnett's soap opera send-off, "Fresno" in the eighties (which I wish they would put on DVD.) And, the fires will knock you out and look like something out of "Backdraft." You literally can feel the heat, they're so real. I was very impressed with the fact they didn't cut corners in showing the real thing in an old movie like this. In fact, I was very impressed with everything for such a little unknown movie, which I think you will too.