Australian
Screen

an NFSA website

Tall Timbers (1937)

play Violence – low
Email a link to this page
To:
CC:
Subject:
Body:
clip Not so tall timbers

This clip chosen to be PG

Clip description

Darley (Frank Harvey) has just shot dead Charles Blake (Campbell Copelin), in Jim Thornton’s cabin. Blake had made Claire Darley pregnant, then refused to marry her. Thornton (Frank Leighton) and Joan Burbridge (Shirley Ann Richards) rush to the log cabin to try to stop him, but Darley blows the charges, setting off the chain reaction of falling trees. The trees have been pre-cut, making the forest extremely dangerous. In the ensuing destruction, the wounded Darley is killed by a falling tree, but Jim and his new love Joan survive.

Curator’s notes

by Paul Byrnes

The use of sound is very effective in this sequence. The fake forest looks very obvious to modern eyes, but the sound makes it much more credible. One of the film’s stranger implications is that Jim Thornton has, in fact, fallen in love with his own sister. The script steers around this ticklish quandary by making Joan the adopted daughter of Stephen Burbridge. They are free to marry, which they do in the film’s final scene.

Thanks to the generosity of the rights holders, we are able to offer Not so tall timbers from the feature film Tall Timbers as a high quality video download.

To play the downloadable video, you need QuickTime 7.0, VLC, or similar.

You must read and agree to the following terms and conditions before downloading the clip:

australianscreen is produced by the National Film and Sound Archive. By using the website you agree to comply with the terms and conditions described elsewhere on this site. The NFSA may amend the 'Conditions of Use’ from time to time without notice.

All materials on the site, including but not limited to text, video clips, audio clips, designs, logos, illustrations and still images, are protected by the Copyright Laws of Australia and international conventions.

When you access australianscreen you agree that:

  • You may retrieve materials for information only.
  • You may download materials for your personal use or for non-commercial educational purposes, but you must not publish them elsewhere or redistribute clips in any way.
  • You may embed the clip for non-commercial educational purposes including for use on a school intranet site or a school resource catalogue.
  • The National Film and Sound Archive’s permission must be sought to amend any information in the materials, unless otherwise stated in notices throughout the Site.

All other rights reserved.

ANY UNAUTHORISED USE OF MATERIAL ON THIS SITE MAY RESULT IN CIVIL AND CRIMINAL LIABILITY.

This clip is available in the following configurations:

File nameSizeQualitySuitability
talltimb3_pr.mp4 Large: 22.0MB High Optimised for full-screen display on a fast computer.
talltimb3_bb.mp4 Medium: 10.4MB Medium Can be displayed full screen. Also suitable for video iPods.

Right-click on the links above to download video files to your computer.

Thanks to the generosity of the rights holders, we are able to offer this clip in an embeddable format for personal or non-commercial educational use in full form on your own website or your own blog.

You must read and agree to the following terms and conditions before embedding the clip:

australianscreen is produced by the National Film and Sound Archive. By using the website you agree to comply with the terms and conditions described elsewhere on this site. The NFSA may amend the 'Conditions of Use’ from time to time without notice.

All materials on the site, including but not limited to text, video clips, audio clips, designs, logos, illustrations and still images, are protected by the Copyright Laws of Australia and international conventions.

When you access australianscreen you agree that:

  • You may retrieve materials for information only.
  • You may download materials for your personal use or for non-commercial educational purposes, but you must not publish them elsewhere or redistribute clips in any way.
  • You may embed the clip for non-commercial educational purposes including for use on a school intranet site or a school resource catalogue.
  • The National Film and Sound Archive’s permission must be sought to amend any information in the materials, unless otherwise stated in notices throughout the Site.

All other rights reserved.

ANY UNAUTHORISED USE OF MATERIAL ON THIS SITE MAY RESULT IN CIVIL AND CRIMINAL LIABILITY.

Copy and paste the following code into your own web page to embed this clip: