Songs: Hoagy Carmichael composed both lyrics and music for the novelty number, "My Dog", which he also sings. The others, sung by Vera Ralston, are "The Tambourine Waltz" and "What Ev'ry Young Girl Should Know", with words by Paul Francis Webster, and "He's Dead But He Won't Lie Down", the words of which were written by Johnny Mercer. Title song "Timberjack", sung by The Lancers, was written by Ned Washington and Victor Young.Unfolding against the lavish natural wonderland of Western Montana, the film was made on location both there and in Glacier National Park.Copyright 1955 by Republic Pictures Corp. New York opening at Loew's State: 9 March 1955. U.S. release: 28 February 1955. U.K. release: March 1955. Australian release through 20th Century-Fox: 24 February 1956. Sydney opening at the Palladium: 24 February 1956 (ran one week). 8,326 feet. 92 minutes.SYNOPSIS: Tim Chipman (Sterling Hayden) returns to his native Talka River section of Montana when he learns his father has met with a serious accident. Tim's boyhood sweetheart, Lynne Tilton (Vera Ralston), is now the owner and singing star of the Vermilion Belle, a deluxe cabaret. The place is highly popular with timberjacks employed by the Talka River Logging Company, a powerful outfit headed by ruthless Croft Brunner (David Brian). Brunner explains that the road is closed to the Chipman interests until the $11,000 assessment on the Chipman stock in the railroad is paid. Tim accuses Brunner of having killed Chipman. With Steve Riika (Chill Wills) and Lynne's father, "Swiftie" Tilton (Adolphe Menjou), Tim tries to get the season's quota of timber to market. Brunner offers to buy a fine quarter-million stand of fir, and Tim refuses to sell. Brunner imports city goons to wreck Tim's timber-floating preparations. (At this stage, however, the picture runs out of money and proceeds to a swifter and much more economical climax than that promised).COMMENT: Catchy title tune, picturesquely rugged scenery, a Shay logging locomotive with flatcars, a couple of vigorously staged action spots, a great performance by Howard Petrie - that just about sums up the entertainment virtues of Timberjack. But on the other side of the coin: dreary songs and overly contrived dance numbers, garish sets, long dialogue stretches with boring people exercising their gums at considerable length - and Vera Ralston filling the wide screen just a little too comfortably.OTHER VIEWS: Vera Ralston registers fine as Vera Ralston in this typical Republic outdoors melodrama. The usual brawls, shoot-outs and occasional spurts of action, plus genuine location scenery that looks mighty picturesque in Trucolor, makes Timberjack a natural for the bush. For city suburban cinemas, however, Timberjack is best booked as the lower half of a midweek double. - Exhibitors' Booking Guide.

****SPOILERS*** Hard knuckles action adventure movie taking place in the timber country of Montana that has the just graduated from collage with an engineering degree Tim "Timber" Chipman played by the sterling Sterling Hyden who come to take over his father's timber business; only to later find out that his old man is hospitalized with a cracked skull and not expected to live. On top of all that Tim also finds out that the big man or timber baron in town the ruthless and take no prisoners in the timber business Croft Brunner, David Brian, is planning to steal his father timber company right from under him. It's Brunner who through a shyster friend of his found out that the ban on cutting down trees in the area is being lifted through a technicality in the law that no one, but him and his lawyer, knows about! With Brunner in control of Tim's timber company he can makes millions in the logging of timber while having a desperate Tim, who's already tens of thousands in debt, selling it all to him for only pennies on the dollar!With his old man passing away from his injuries Tim decides to run it all by himself with the help of his logger crew headed by the simple-minded but strong as an ox Axe-Handle Ole, Howard Petrie. It's Ole who's since been on the outs with his former slave driving boss Brunner since he took over the business from the late Mr. Chipman. It's when Tim started courting the beautiful saloon singer at the "Vermillion Belle" Lynne Tilton, Vera Ralston, that the extremely jealous Brunner has a crush on that sparks start to fly in both "Big Sky" as well as "Timber Country". In fact it was Lynne's dad Brunner's drunk shyster lawyer Swiftie "The Hat" Tilton, Adolphe Menjou, who's doing everything under the table to stall his client Brunner from taking over Tim's lumber business because, beside being employed by him, he hates his guts!****SPOILERS**** It's when Brunner in a fit of rage, in finding out what he's been doing behind his back, smashes Swiftie's brains in and tried to pin his death on Tim that the truth comes out from Axe Handle Ole, whom Brunner also worked over, that not only did he kill Swiftie but Tim's dad as well! Brunner meanwhile sent for a number of out of area goons to dynamite the train that Tim is using to transfer his lumber only to have them later chicken out when the truth comes out that the man who hired them, Croft Brunner, is a suspected double murderer! The final showdown has Tim with Lynne's help finally put an end to Brunner and his dreams of monopolizing the timber business in the state of Montana by putting an end to him. The movie's stirring theme song "Timberjack" was preformed by the country & western singing group called "The Lancers".

Ah yes, the Republic treatment for logging movies shot in glorious 'funny looking' Trucolor. One must be very forgiving of Republic constantly making silent movie western melodramas even if they were produced 1955 and in color. It is as if they just kept making the same (sort of) films year in and out until the doors closed in 1959. Vera, the singing wife of studio head Herbert Yates moans a few songs and swings her Hungarian hips about the saloon warbling through her ZsaZsa sounding accent. Somehow, all this is great fun. There is great outdoor scenery, some fantastic railroad location footage and genuinely interesting logging train scenes. Adolph Menjou and Hoagy Carmichael are added to the cast of character actors who look as thought they are there to earn enough to afford a long holiday. Some scenes outside the saloon doors are clearly shot in the corridor at the entrance of a sound stage which all makes TIMBERJACK more quaintly fascinating. As with Johnny Guitar, someone returns to slug it out with someone and fix the bad guys. However we have Vera instead of Joan in this one and a competent serial director. In fact if it was chopped up into 12 minute episodes, that is exactly what TIMBERJACK would be. Very watchable for all the above reasons.

When he hears of his father's death, Tim Chipman returns to the family logging territory and company to help run it. However he walks back into a losing battle where rival logger Croft Brunner bought up the railway line and refused Chipman to remove his logs on it, forcing them to be moved the longest and costliest way; Brunner then followed this with an offer to buy Chipman out. When Chipman throws the offer back in Brunner's face he ends up dead in suspicious circumstances. With Tim taking over, Brunner hopes to get his offer accepted but Chipman Junior has no intention of giving the company to a man he suspects had a hand in his father's death.From the opening credits alone (a hilariously corny song with some real gems in the lyrics - "hurry back, hurry back, timberjack") my hopes were not high but I decided, in the name of continuing to put off more important things, to watch it anyway. The film quickly moves into the standard patter for this type of film by running a series of songs, fistfights, romance and melodrama in a cycle that builds to an ending that more or less mixes them all together. This is hardly anything new and is typical of the "entertainment for all" ethos of similar films and it doesn't really do any aspect of it well enough to stand out or make any sort of lasting impression. The plot has an enjoyable tension between Chipman and Brunner and also produces some unspectacular but fun fight scenes; the romance aspect is badly done and reduces parts of the film to the level of poor melodrama. The songs are perky and lively but none of them stuck in my mind longer than the numbers themselves. This mix did enough to entertain me on a basic level, which was all I was really expecting it to do. The most interesting parts for me were the sections that showed the loggers in action – either up the top of a massive tree or floating logs down a river; it was fascinating to see it being done although I wouldn't watch the whole film again for that reason.The cast is mixed but are part of the all-round entertainment value of the film. Hayden is a good screen presence in even the most average films and so he is here – just sticking out his chest and jaw and letting them do the work. Brian is a reasonable foil and, despite having less of a presence gives almost as good as he gets. Ralston is a bit bland but is good in the musical numbers; Carmichael provides a small bit of comic relief. Noir fans will probably be as surprised as I was to find Elisha Cook Jr in a tiny role hidden behind a wisp of whiskers! Overall this is a fairly average film that doesn't really excel at anything but does the usual mix of action, melodrama and music together to produce an enjoyable film. It isn't anything special but it has just about enough going for it to be a watchable 90 minutes if you are in an undemanding mood.