This Redwood Tree Fall Murder Scene from a forgotten Kirk Douglas Movie is Insane
I've broken down this batshit scene for you.
Great Jewish movie star Kirk Douglas, born Issur Danielovitch, lol, was a stand-up fella. Great filmography. Incredible dimple. And the one in his chin ain’t bad either, eh? Wait, what? Yes, I’m talking about his butt [citation needed].
But there’s one movie that Kirk made on his way up in 1952 that is not so great. It’s a film called “The Big Trees”, and it has since entered the public domain, allowing you to watch it here.
Here are the broad strokes, and I want you to note how insane each one of them is, and I haven’t even gotten to the insane clip that is now one of my favorite scenes in any movie, tree-related or not.
Kirk Douglas plays an early 20th century lumber baron in Northern California named, I shit you not, “Jimmy Fallon”.
I want you to guess who’s trees he’s trying to exploit. Because if you guessed the trees of the Yurok tribe or another Indigenous people, akin to actual history, you would be wrong! Because in the movie, it’s a peaceful band of tree-worshipping Quakers! American Indians? Never even mentioned.
The terms “Redwood,” “Big Sequoia Redwood,” “Sequoia,” “Giant Redwoods”, “Giant Sequoias,” and “Redwood Sequoia” are all used to describe the trees, which are supposed to be Coast Redwoods (Sequoia sempervirens, the tall ones). Giant Sequoias live 300 miles Southwest and are an entirely different species, (Sequoiadendron giganteum, the wide ones).
But the real humdinger of the film is a two-minute scene that begins at about 56:20. See, Elder Bixby (Charles Meredith), the quaker/mormon/druid who leads the religious homies and also has a smokin’ hot daughter Alicia (Eve Miller), who Jimmy Fallon heartily digs, finds out that his house (which he is inside of) is in the direct “line of fall” for a tree that Jimmy’s men are cutting. Note: the men seem completely unable to cut the tree down in any other direction, despite the fact that there are roughly 357 degrees to choose from.
“Come out of there, you fools, you’re in the line of fall,” the jerk tree-feller shouts. Then a Sneaky Pete who wants to usurp Jimmy Fallon’s boss-man power has this exact interchange with the tree-feller:
Sneaky Pete: They wanna go down with the ship? It’s their hard luck!
Tree-feller: It’s murder!
Sneaky Pete: It’s Fallon’s company. He gets life for murder. We get the company.
That’s right. This man is exploiting pre-Square Deal workplace safety liability laws using premeditated tree-fall murder in order to ascend the lumber baron hierarchy. Now that’s a great villain.
Anywho, while Alicia urges him to leave the house, which would be very easy, Elder Bixby gets that martyr-y look in his eye and utters the following, “The years that grew into these trees make them long and tedious to saw. It’s time to get our friends, Judge Crenshaw and the Marshal. Hurry!” Alicia bolts.
Five seconds later, Jimmy Fallon rides up to the men and excoriates them, “what’s the matter with you, men?! You aren’t to cut that tree, you’ll hit the cabin!” Sneaky Pete then retorts, “That’s right!” Then, of course, smokin’ Alicia arrives with the Judge and the Marshal, and, uh-oh, the tree begins to fall…extremely slowly!
I timed it, and the tree spends exactly thirty seconds in free fall. This is enough time for Jimmy Fallon to ask where Alicia and her father are, for the Sneaky Pete to proclaim, “how should I know!”, then for Jimmy Fallon to tell Alicia that the house is probably caput, then for Alicia to tell him that her father is inside, then for Jimmy Fallon to run about two hundred feet to the cabin door, then glance at the tree, then decide he doesn’t have enough time, then run away, and then the tree falls directly on the house, turning it to dust, exactly like the Sneaky Pete planned it. Then Kirk Douglas is promptly arrested by the Marshal.
What. A. Movie. Please watch.