The Big Trees (1952)

Kirk Douglas plays Jim Fallon, the slick con man, always looking for a way to turn a buck. His new way is to exploit the redwood forests in California. So he sends a newfound friend, Yukon “Lucky” Burns (Edgar Buchanan) to scout the area.

As it turns out, the land he has his eye on is the beloved outdoor church of a religious sect that includes lovely Alicia Chadwick (Eve Miller). Despite his attraction for her, Fallon is determined to gain control of the property so he can turn a tidy profit on the timber it holds.

Burns isn’t thrilled; he’s made promises that the folks who settled on the land would be treated fairly. Now it appears Fallon is going to break all those promises, prompting him to side with Alicia and her fellow believers, who aren’t inclined toward violence.

John Archer plays Frenchy LeCroix, Fallon’s longtime right-hand man who’s always looking to make a buck.

Patrice Wymore is Daisy Fisher, the pretty blonde who loves Fallon but who is also determined to cash in when it’s clear his affections lie with Alicia.

Kirk Douglas as Jim Fallon, plotting to get the timber from the California Sequoias in The Big Trees (1952)

Eve Miller as Alicia Chadwick, determined to protect the California redwoods that serve as a church to her congregation in The Big Trees (1952)

Review:

Kirk Douglas is back in a familiar role as a lovable scoundrel, but it’s the action scenes that help salvage this film, which takes a few twists and turns along the way, but still ends up in the same place you suspect it will about 15 minutes in.

Among those scenes, an exploding dam, an attempt to stop a runaway caboose with Alicia inside before it plummets off the end of a blown-up railroad bridge and a giant redwood being cut down so it falls on a cabin.

Perhaps the best of all isn’t the biggest of those action scenes — a cat-aclysm designed to keep Fallon’s land filings from reaching D.C. quickly. I won’t spoil the nature, but the hyphen is intentional.

Edgar Buchanan as Walter ‘Yukon’ Burns and Michael McHale as a government man named Keller in The Big Trees (1952)

Patrice Wymore as Daisy Fisher, aka Dora Figg, a woman Jim Fallon uses to get what he wants in The Big Trees (1952)

Directed by:
Felix Feist

Cast:
Kirk Douglas … Jim Fallon
Eve Miller … Alicia Chadwick
Patrice Wymore … Daisy Fisher
Edgar Buchanan … Yukon Burns
John Archer … Frenchy LeCroix
Alan Hale Jr. … Tiny
Roy Roberts … Judge Crenshaw
Charles Meredith … Elder Bixby
Harry Cording … Cleve Gregg
Ellen Corby … Sister Blackburn

Runtime: 89 min.

Harry Cordin as Cleve Gregg and John Archer as Frenchy LeCroix, two men after the same fortune as Jim Fallon in The Big Trees (1952)

Charles Meredith as Elder Bixby, Alicia’s father, and Brother Williams in The Big Trees (1952)

Memorable lines:

Jim Fallon: “What are they all dressed up for?
Frenchy: “There’s a hallelujah colony around here. Soul savers. Rigid and religious.”
Fallon: “That dark-haired one can save my soul any time.”

Judge Crenshaw: “Mr. Burns, I’ve heard you were an honest man and good with a gun. But I also heard you confessed to a weakness for liquor, cards and women.”
Yukon Burns: “Not women, your honor. They ain’t for the weak.”

Yukon Burns, admiring the California redwoods: “Biggest, oldest living things in the whole world. Make you feel kinda small?”
Jim Fallon: “Nope. Big. I’m the one who’s gonna knock ’em down.”

Reverend: “Violence is not in our creed.”
Yukon Burns: “Yeah, I know. And I believe in turning the other cheek. But you’ve just about run out of cheeks. It’s about time you grew some religious muscle.”

Roy Roberts as Judge Crenshaw, trying to keep Jim Fallon from manipulating the law in The Big Trees (1952)

Kirk Douglas as Jim Fallon and Eve Miller as Alicia Chadwick among the trees he’s trying to cut and she’s trying to save in The Big Trees (1952)

Yukon Burns: “You’re in a rut, Jim, and you’d better look out because when a rut gets deep enough, it becomes a grave. And you’ve got a couple of partners likely to put you in it.”

Yukon Burns to Alicia Chadwick: “A marrying parson could strait-jacket Jim Fallon and lock him in a box in the bottom of the sea, and he’d still slip the gaffe and make off with all the wedding presents.”

Yukon Burns to Alicia Chadwick: “The biggest mistake a woman can make is to pick the wrong man and try to make him right.”

Daisy Fisher to Frenchy: “You stye on the eye of a flea on a thigh of a nit on the neck of a gnat!”

Elizabeth Slifer as Sister Wallace, listening to Alicia Chadwick (Eve Miller) talk fondly of Jim Fallon in The Big Trees (1952)

Kirk Douglas as JIm Fallon, in trouble after one of his falling trees claims a life in The Big Trees (1952)