‘GOD’S COUNTRY AND THE WOMAN’

Evening Star, Issue 22682, 23 June 1937, Page 3

‘GOD’S COUNTRY AND THE WOMAN ’

OLIVER GURWOOD IN TECHNICOLOUR ‘ God’s Country and the Woman,’ the Warner Bros.’ production, which opens at tho Regent on Friday, is a thrilling romance of the timherlauds. Taking his cast, beaded by George Brent and Beverly Roberts, in the great woods district of Washington, Director Williams Keighley transferred the thrilling romance and stirring action of the novel to the screen. The millions who have delighted in the novel will get an entirlely new thrill when they see the picture, for tho colour photography is far more beautiful and than anything ever filmed, and the director and players, including hundreds of lumberjacks used in the melee, have caught the spirit of the book, and become not merely competent actors, but living personifications of the author’s characters. Steve Russett, as played by George Brent, is a happy-go-lucky playboy partner of the Russett Lumber Company. His brother, Jeff, portrayed by Robert Barrett as a rough-and-ready lumberman without the proverbial heart of gold, has Steve kidnapped and brotight to the lumber camp in tho woods, after Steve has upset a crooked deal by which Jeff had to possess himself of the Crown Tiraberlands, his biggest rivals. Escaping from his kidnappers, Steve finds his way to the Crown Timherlands, where he meets and falls in love with Jo Barton, the capable young woman who heads the rival company, played by that rising young actress, Beverly Roberts. In an effort to save Miss Barton from the ruinous plots of his brother, Steve takes a menial job in her camp. Without her knowledge he thwarts a good many of Jeff’s plans, but when she learns who ho really is she fires him as a spy. With true devotion, however, ho continues to work in her interests. At last, when ho nearly loses his life in his efforts on her behalf, she realises that she has found the man she has been waiting for. Barton MacLano gives a forceful characterisation of the provocative agent in the camp. The strong supporting cast boasts such names as Alan Hale, Roscoe Ates. El Brendel, Billy Bevan, and Vic Potel. Although colour adds to the natural beauty of the production, it does not dominate the picture nor detract from the thrilling sequences which hold the interest from beginning to end.