The Petrified Forest
by Archie Mayo, Roy Mack, Friz Freleng
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DVD Cover Information
Actor: Bette Davis, Dick Foran, Genevieve Tobin, Humphrey Bogart, Leslie HowardDirector: Archie Mayo, Friz Freleng, Roy Mack
Brand: Warner Brothers
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Original Language), Dolby Digital 1.0; English (Subtitled); Spanish (Subtitled); French (Subtitled)
Format: Black & White, Closed-captioned, DVD-Video, Full Screen, NTSC, Subtitled
Picture Format: 1.33:1
Running Time: 82 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2005-01-25
Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Studio: Warner Home Video
Movie Reviews of The Petrified Forest
Movie Review: A Fable About Dreams and Inheritance
Summary: 3 Stars
This film was adapted from a Broadway play and it shows. It begins with a car driving through the southwest desert. A lone man walks along a dry dusty road. There is a desert lunchroom and gas station. One customer comments on politics. The owner is a member of the local militia. There is a rumor about the bandit gang loose in the area. The hired man Bose likes Gabby, the daughter of the owner. A wanderer walks into the lunchroom. Gabby was born in Bourges France; her mother left the desert to return to France. Gabby dreams of poetry and a fantasy life in France. [Will she be disappointed by reality?] Mr. Squire seems to have a grand idea of himself. The talk reveals their characters. Is world chaos caused by nature? [An odd way of thinking.]
The Duke Mantee gang is in the area, what will happen if they reach the lunchroom? The talks suggests Mr. Squire seems doomed. The tension affects the people. Bose makes a wrong move. Mrs. Edith Chisholm doesn't have a bridle for her tongue. Did Mr. Squire have too much to drink? Is this story too fantastic to believe? Do the speeches seem unintentionally funny now? Like Edith's asking for a ride. [What did she drink?] The posse arrives at the lunchroom and the shoot-out begins. Will the outlaw gang escape? Will Squire do a far, far better thing that he has ever done before? Is there a moral to this story? Its success on Broadway tells something about the theatre audience of that time. The ending to the film seems tacked on to match the Hollywood Code. What happened to the hostages? I wonder what people read into this story. "Gramps" seemed like the star in his scenes.
One unbelievable part is the capture of the militia men. Being from that area they should have noticed something was wrong when they arrived. Squire's talent seems to have been smothered in the lap of luxury: too much too soon. If Gabby has talent she should practice, not travel like a tourist. Her fantasy won't match the reality. Entranced by the translation of a medieval poet? Grow up!
Summary of The Petrified Forest
A rundown diner bakes in the Arizona heat. Inside fugitive killer Duke Mantee sweats out a manhunt holding disillusioned writer Alan Squier young Gabby Maple and a handful of others hostage. As trapped as his captives Mantee admits: "It looks like I'll spend the rest of my life dead." The Petrified Forest Robert E. Sherwood's 1935 Broadway success about survival of the fittest in the modern world hit the screen a year later with Leslie Howard (Squier) and Humphrey Bogart (Mantee) magnificently recreating their stage roles and Bette Davis (Gabby) ably reteaming with her Of Human Bondage co-star Howard. Sherwood initially wanted Bogart for a smaller role. "I thought Sherwood was right" Bogart said. "Icouldn't picture myself playing a gangster. So what happened? I made a hit as the gangster." So right was he that Howard refused to make the film without him...and helped launch Bogey's brilliant movie career. - 1936Running Time: 82 min.Format: DVD MOVIE Genre:?DRAMA UPC:?012569522626Adapted from a hit Broadway play by Robert Sherwood and starring original cast members Leslie Howard and Humphrey Bogart, this 1936 suspense drama is set in an aging desert roadhouse caf?, where a young woman (Bette Davis) dreams of escaping a dead-end existence spent with her father and a lunkheaded, would-be suitor. Along comes a penniless poet (Howard), a wanderer who has made a mess of his life and crossed the hot sands as a symbolic act of meaningful futility. Davis's waitress is instantly enchanted, and in short order they begin talking about heading out to the world together. Then a twist: the world comes to them--in the form of escaped convicts, led by the monosyllabic Duke Mantee (Bogart), who secretly agrees to the poet's request that the fugitive gangster kill him. Directed by Archie Mayo (The Great American Broadcast), much of the film, perhaps inevitably, looks set-bound. Most of the action occurs in the caf?, and the script's tension sadly dissipates a bit as villains and hostages stay glued to their seats. The film's enduring appeal has everything to do with the leading performances: the fascinating alchemy of Howard's ethereal air, Davis's sexy urgency, and Bogart's bemused menace. If the story feels a trifle dated and perhaps a bit smug, the actors make it compelling nonetheless. --Tom Keogh
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