The Petrified Forest (1936)

Director:

Archie Mayo

Writers:

Charles Kenyon (screenplay) and
Delmer Daves (screenplay) ...

Release Date:

8 February 1936 (USA)

Genre:

Crime | Drama | Romance

Plot:

A waitress, a hobo and a bank robber get mixed up at a lonely diner in the desert.

Plot Keywords:

Life Insurance | Murder | Poet | Restaurant | Self Sacrifice

Cast

Leslie Howard	...	Alan Squier
Bette Davis	...	Gabrielle Maple
Genevieve Tobin	...	Mrs. Chisholm
Dick Foran	...	Boze Hertzlinger
Humphrey Bogart	...	Duke Mantee
Joe Sawyer	...	Jackie (as Joseph Sawyer)
Porter Hall	...	Jason Maple
Charley Grapewin	...	Gramp Maple
Paul Harvey	...	Mr. Chisholm
Eddie Acuff	...	Lineman
Adrian Morris	...	Ruby
Nina Campana	...	Paula
Slim Thompson	...	Slim
John Alexander	...	Joseph
rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Constance Bergen	...	Doris (Mantee's girl) (scenes deleted)

Runtime:

83 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

Canada:PG (video rating) | Finland:(Banned) (1936) | USA:Approved (PCA #1751) | Germany:6 | Australia:G

Filming Locations:

Red Rock Canyon State Park - Highway 14, Cantil, California, USA

Company:

Warner Bros. Pictures

Trivia:

The character of Duke Mantee was mainly inspired by bank robber John Dillinger.

Goofs:

Continuity: In the scene where the rich couple and their black servant return to the gas station, behind Bogart a window opens. The football jock flinches, the sound of the window hitting open is heard and that sound is repeated when the window actually opens shown by Bogart turning around.

Quotes:

Gramp Maple: But let me tell you one thing, Mr. Squier. The woman don't live or ever did live that's worth five thousand dollars!
Alan Squier: Well, let me tell you something. You're a forgetful old fool. Any woman's worth everything that any man has to give: anguish, ecstasy, faith, jealousy, love, hatred, life or death. Don't you see that's the whole excuse for our existence? It's what makes the whole thing possible and tolerable.

Movie Connections:

Referenced in Hold Your Breath and Cross Your Fingers: The Story of 'Dark Passage' (2003) (V)

Soundtrack:

I'd Rather Listen to Your Eyes

Siddown and keep yer yap shut.

It's really an unusual movie (or, to be more exact, filmed stage play) for its time. There's nothing unique about the situation. A gangster and his handful of hoods hole up in an isolated desert cafe with hostages of varying characters. But it's impressively written, and handled deftly by the performers. There aren't that many movies in which I look forward to the appearance of Betty Davis, but she's just fine here.

The film is all the more surprising because the theme it treats is an old one -- the replacement of the old and exhausted by the new and visionary. (Cf., "Shane" for another example.)

It may have struck a more responsive chord with audiences of the early 1930s -- that old and exhausted business. (The rabid capitalism of the past must have seemed a little old-fashioned. When this was written, income taxes were negligible and there was no social security. The robber barons were able to keep just about every nickel they could squeeze out of their non-unionized subordinates.)

There's a kind of robber baron in this movie too. A businessman with an expensive car, a black chauffeur, and a wife who doesn't love him. It's a bit stereotypical, true, but it's hard to overcome the necessity for sketching in a character with a few lines of dialogue without seeming lazy or preachy. About half-way through, by the way, his wife gives him hell for his selfishness.

The two black characters (the chauffeur and one of the gangsters) are never referred to by their race. Both are highly individuated people and the one exchange between them is kind of funny. Bogart as Duke Mantee gives what is probably his most highly stylized performance. His menacing posture is that of someone who has recently suffered a stroke in the region of the cerebellum. He even speaks oddly -- not his usual snappy lines, but long, drawn-out, ominous, yet resigned to his fate. He seems to agree with Leslie Howard that they are washed up, which is the reason he agrees to kill Howard, who will then leave his money to Betty Davis so she can return to France where she was born. It's Custer's last stand. And that forest is indeed petrified.

There's a bit of philosophizing and poetry -- but not enough to dull the narrative. And Villon is the perfect poet for Betty Davis. Not aristocratic or elegant, a thief from the lower depths really, but filled with passion. ("This is the end for which we twain are met.") He could have been Davis leaving the petrified forest and involving herself in something most people would recognize as more grand.

Howard has misspent his life. He's only written one book, so he's obviously a failure. I didn't care for that remark too much, since I've only written one book myself and nobody read it except my Mom, and her only at gunpoint. So maybe he overplays the world weariness. But he and Bogart are the only two characters in the movie who seem to know what it's all about. The gangsters and the football player are airheads. Davis is full of dreams. The businessman thinks only of himself. His wife brims over with resentment. The old man is foolish and tells lies. Only Howard and Bogart see through everything.

It's quite a good movie. It shows what you can do with some good actors, a decent script, and very little in the way of extravagant special effects or expensive location shooting. (The windblown desert sets look the way windblown desert locations should, and so seldom do.) My advice? Siddown, mug, and watch it.