The Forest Commandos

Back in 2017, I briefly mentioned the short film The Forest Commandos. TCM ran it some months back during the Saturday matinee block, which is how I got it on my DVR under its own title, and not tacked on to some feature movie to fill out a time slot. So I rewatched it to give it a bit more justice with a longer review rather than just a one-paragraph synopsis.

The opening titles mention that the short was filmed in Technicolor, but whether any color prints survived is an open question as the print that TCM ran was in black and white. It was filmed in 1945, right at the end of World War II, and obviously makes a lot of reference to the war. Northern Ontario has a lot of forest, and forestry products are a key element in the production of all sorts of goods. However, there's not a whole lot of transportation connections since the region is fairly sparsely populated, and the bush pilots are a key element in keeping the region connected; as such, the movie is dedicated to them.

Forests like that are also under threat both from invasive species and forest fires, and a good portion of this short is dedicated to those two, especially the latter since fire is cinematically more interesting than somebody looking through a microsope for moth larvae. One thing mentioned is the series of lookout towers that were used in those days, something very familiar to me living in the Catskill Mountains. A couple of the peaks here in the Catskills still have the fire towers on the top, not for the original use of having fire rangers look for fires and use ranging equipment and ham radio to speak ranges in other towers to determine the exact location of the fire, but now as a sort of museum to promote conservation.

As you might guess, we get the obligatory forest fire, with the second half of the short showing how the fire was fought in those days. The fire they cover also threatens a small village called Gogama, with footage of a possible evacuation filmed. Thankfully the rains come and help put out the fire.

The Forest Commandos is certainly an interesting idea, especially for audiences in the 1940s that wouldn't have had as much opportunity to see such stuff elsewhere. However, a good portion of this is presented almost in the way you'd expect a Pete Smith short to go, except not nearly as funny. It also doesn't help that there's a good deal of footage that's obviously stock footage from somewhere else, making you wonder just how much of the whole thing was staged. It's also a shame that the original color prints don't seem to be available, as the footage probably would have looked a lot more dramatic in color.