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Beyond the Forest (1949)

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19 comments in total

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13 out of 15 people found the following comment useful :-
More than camp, 15 August 2001

Author: olet from toronto, ontario

While there ARE overdone and exaggerated moments in this film, it is also a near masterpiece! Bette Davis plays Rosa Moline, a small town strumpet who wants more than her hick doctor hubby can provide.

Bette's explosive performance is among the best of her career(and that's saying something!). Her character has to be among the most evil in motion picture history. What is remarkable is that Bette compels us to care about and, even root for this greedy and self centered woman. That is part of what makes Bette Davis the most versatile and most accomplished actress in motion picture history.

A particularly wonderful scene takes place later in the film. Rosa gives her husband a surprising bit of news at a picnic. Watch the sadness and mixed emotions that emanate from her eyes. What an amazing and bittersweet scene.

The problem with the film is that there are scenes that don't fully detail what happens to Rosa near the end of the film. Also, there were changes imposed on the film by the production code that weakened its narrative logic.

Despite a few flaws, this is a fabulous film. The highs and lows of Rosa Moline are compelling and complex. Like the sinister character Bette Davis portrays, the film is far deeper than it seems. Those who think of it only as camp should take a closer look.

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12 out of 15 people found the following comment useful :-
One of Hollywood's Greatest!, 25 June 2001
Author: PrincessAnanka from United States

"Beyond the Forest" is finally getting the respect it's always deserved. A number of film historians are finally appraising this masterpiece as the work of art it is. Thanks to its phenomenal star, Bette Davis, this King Vidor production has had to struggle with a bad reputation since it was first seen back in l949. Davis was going through a breakdown: she hated her studio, her marriage was dead, and Jack Warner finally kicked her ass off the Warner lot. Forever after, Davis always slammed everything about "Beyond the Forest" and people who never even saw it, joked about it and tore it to pieces. Especially, the gay crowds. When I saw "Beyond the Forest" at the old Regency Theater here in Manhattan back in the 80s, no one could enjoy it, since the gaggle of screeching queens ruined it for everyone by camping it up. Davis' inner turmoil and fury is what makes Rosa Moline literally seethe with fury, bristling with electricity in her greatest role. No other major star would have taken the risks that Davis does. As to the many comments about her black wig, make-up, clevage. This is how small-town women tried to look during that era. The Maria Montez look. I remember this from my small Southern town. All women dyed their hair black, grew long tresses, etc. Max Steiner's musical score is among his greatest (next to another masterpiece that Bette always put down, the l942 "In This Our life.")Davis' role is among the greatest ever put on screen. She displays her genius here like never before. To those who like to be clever and cute and view this gem as "camp", get a life. Davis is at her most brilliant. She nearly matches her brilliant portrayal of a psychopathic Southern Belle, Stanley Timberlake, in the great "In This Our Life." Bravo to Bette! To new viewers, watch it alone without the wisecracks, giggles and smart inside jokes. Warner Brothers did itself and its great star proud.

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8 out of 10 people found the following comment useful :-
Bette Davis kindles trash into an inferno, 25 February 2002

Author: bmacv from Western New York

*** This comment may contain spoilers ***

Beyond The Forest drags around a reputation as one of the all-time stinkers, a reputation that's far from deserved but not hard to understand. This is the movie whose name Martha, in Edward Albee's play Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf, can't remember after she quotes the emblematic line `What a dump.' (Thrown away by Bette Davis, the line got parodied as high camp by Elizabeth Taylor in the play's screen version.) It also fell at a time when Davis' best work was thought to be well behind her, and when she was labeled `difficult,' a year before All About Eve gave her career a booster shot.

And, to be fair, there are aspects of the movie itself, a lurid and overwrought drama, that account for some of the scorn that's been heaped upon it. Married to impoverished physician Joseph Cotton in a grim Wisconsin factory town, Davis (as Rosa Moline) chafes against the boredom of her life and craves romance, adventure, big-city life as exemplified by Chicago, just a short train-ride away. That's where big-shot David Brian lives the high life but now and then visits a hunting lodge in the woods where he caught Davis' eye. She's just another notch on his bedpost but she's convinced herself he'll hand her the life of her fantasies. The plot cooks up a witch's brew of adultery, abortion and murder. But director King Vidor does well with the overripe material, which smacks of midcentury `regional' literature. Though Davis' long black wig is a sight for sore eyes, it's entirely in character for the slutty Rosa with longings above her breeding. When she finally travels to the Big Town, Vidor turns it into a tense yet poignant cinematic vignette.

Admittedly, there are weaknesses: the big murder trial seems irrelevant even in this far-fetched plot, and both Cotton and Brian get elbowed offscreen by the volcanic Davis. [SPOILER HERE:] But Beyond the Forest's operatic ending more than compensates for the movie's faults. Greasy-faced and straggle-haired, guzzling pitchers of water and sweating like a stuck pig, Davis, dying and delirious from peritonitis (that botched operation), rouses herself for one last trip to Chicago. Kicking away her native American maid, she slaps on her makeup and finery and staggers down to the railroad tracks where the approaching train whistles its siren song of `Chicago, Chicago.' Alas, poor Rosa Moline dies like a dog, face down in the mud, as it passes her by. It's an eye-popping, go-for-broke performance, and maybe only Davis at this desperate juncture in her stardom could have brought off this Liebestod.

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8 out of 11 people found the following comment useful :-
Hilarious, campy stinker., 20 October 1999

Author: boy-13 (afsfboy22@aol.com) from San Francisco, California

Interestingly, as Bette Davis' final film for Warner Bros., her unhappiness with the studio after a prolonged and tomultuous run really shows through in this role. Her disgust with the domineering studio adds to the bleakness of this hilariously bad stinker of a film.

Davis plays Rosa Moline ("I'm not just a small town girl - I'm Rosa Moline!", "I came here - dragged myself on my hands and knees with no pride. Me, Rosa Moline!"). Rosa is a self-absorbed, driven woman stuck in smalltown America. Obsessed with the thought of moving to nearby Chicago and living the glamorous life full of furs and status, she embarks on an affair with big city businessman David Brian. Sick and tired of her mundane life and her self-sacrificing doctor husband (Joseph Cotten), Rosa plots, lies, schemes, and murders her way to what she thinks will be a better life.

In the tradition of later films such as "Valley of the Dolls" (1967), or even "Showgirls" (1995), "Beyond the Forest" is a laugh riot....it's so bad that it's good. Davis prances around the backwoods in her insanely faux-looking black hair, a Mae West-esque tone in her voice, planning to destroy the lives of those around her. We watch her brandish a rifle and shoot porcupines, as well as humans, carry around a mirror for those all important vanity checks, and topping it all off, take a death-defying leap off a cliff. Perhaps, just perhaps this would be a better film if we actually had a character to root for. But Davis' character is too evil and dark to be a smart or funny villain, Cotten's dopey doc is too self-involved and oblivious for us to support, and Brian's traveling man is too underdeveloped to even get to know. On the upside, music- extraordinaire Max Steiner once again weaves his soundtrack magic providing a great score. But good music does not compensate for such a corn-ball of a flick. It's really novel when even the wonderful Davis can't save a sinking film.

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4 out of 5 people found the following comment useful :-
When I die I don't want no part of heaven....., 17 April 2007
Author: dbdumonteil

*** This comment may contain spoilers ***

I would not do heaven's work well,

I pray the devil comes and takes me,

To stand in the fiery furnaces of hell. (Bruce Springsteen)

"Madame Bovary" meets evil.Actually,the central character is so evil,that King Vidor felt compelled (or the producers suggested he did) to "warn" the audience : in a nutshell,knowing where evil lays helps us to fight against it.

A long-haired prodigious Bette Davis plays a modern Madame Bovary:like Flaubert's heroine ,she is married to a poor country doctor (Joseph Cotten)who treats his patients for free;like her,she dreams of luxury (the scene when she puts on Roman's fur coat is revealing),of leaving her little provincial town (a voice-over at the beginning tells us that the train seems to whisper:" Chi-Cago Chi-Cago");like her ,she has a flighty lover .

There the comparison ends:Rosa Molines epitomizes evil.She was born to be a queen and she won't be satisfied till she owns everything.With the exception of the short scene in the woods where she tells her husband she's pregnant by him -look at her hair !- ,Rosa never stops,she pushes people out of her way;even when she is humiliated -the scenes "beyond the forest" in Chicago-,she knows she will not lose,cause she is completely unscrupulous.

Unlike Pearl (Jennifer Jones) in "Duel in the sun"(1946) or Ruby Gentry (Jones again) in the eponymous movie(1952),Rosa's only motives are money,luxury and being a socialite in Chicago.Pearl and Ruby led the men they loved to ruin,but they did love them.Rosa only loves herself.

The "abortion" scene -which strongly recalls Gene Tierney's in Stahl's "Leave her to heaven" (1946)- was probably the main reason for the "warning" lines" during the cast and credits.

You should see these three Vidor works one after the others:"Duel in the Sun" "Beyond the Forest" and "Ruby Gentry" .These are superior melodramas.

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4 out of 5 people found the following comment useful :-
undeniable camp, 24 April 2001

Author: mikhail080 from upstate new york

The apex of Bette Davis camp, film grabs viewer's attention with outrageous plot devices and over-the-top dialogue. Just to watch Davis constantly toying with her black wig is to wonder what were they thinking? Was it some kind of horrible revenge foisted on Davis by angry Warner Bros executives? She tries to play 20 years younger, but is not successful on any count. Her vicious dealings with her "Indian girl" maid set new standards in bad taste and stupidity. I like their exchange over the serving of chicken ala king at dinner. Dialoge is unbelievable in its melodramatic content. Many, many classic lines most delivered by Davis with bravado and over-confidence. As supporting player Minor Watson tells her, "You're something for the birds, Rosa. Something for the birds..."

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4 out of 5 people found the following comment useful :-
What a weird movie!, 2 September 2000
Author: nickandrew from PA

One of Davis's most unusual performances as a bored doctor's wife who carries on an affair with millionaire Brian and eventually gets involved with a murder. Story is so full of oddities, that Davis alone cannot even pull this one over. This is where the immortal line "what a dump!" is said.

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6 out of 9 people found the following comment useful :-
An intense Bette Davis in a forceful Ibsenesque melodrama, 20 November 2001
Author: Geofbob from London, England

It was interesting seeing this soon after seeing The Man Who Wasn't There, the Coen brothers would-be 40s film-noir. Both movies are set in small towns, have way-out plots involving violent crime and illicit love, and feature main protagonists trying to get out of a rut. But whereas the Coens' nouveau-noir plays it deadpan, philosophical and slow, and thereby risks boring the audience stiff; the genuine article with King Vidor at the helm, races along, goes way over the top, and glues the viewer to the screen.

Melodramatic and flawed though it may be, I don't go along with those who regard the movie merely as a camp vehicle for some arch Bette Davis overacting as the "evil" Rosa Moline. This film has genuine substance and potency, and Hedda Gabler-like Rosa's near-hysterical exasperation with the suffocating small town atmosphere - symbolised by the ever-present smoke and dust from the local sawmill - and with her dull, worthy, medico husband (Joseph Cotton), must have rung a bell with many American and other women in the stifling post-war years. Her "What a dump!" quite probably echoed their inner thoughts, as may her reluctance to have a baby (contrasted in the film with another woman's eighth, delivered by the good doctor). Moreover, despite Davis playing a woman at least 10 years younger than her actual age, her scenes with David Brian as her wealthy lover are truly erotic, and some of the lines may raise eyebrows even today.

Those who dismiss this film should perhaps give it another chance, try to place it in the context of its era, and possibly ponder on how some of the "cool" masterpieces of today will be viewed by their grandchildren in 50 years time.

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3 out of 4 people found the following comment useful :-
How to spice up life in a small town., 7 October 2005

Author: lizphairian from United States

*** This comment may contain spoilers ***

I saw this movie on my 21st B-day, and was really loaded... I loved it!! Then forgot what it was called.

The shot with Bette on the porch swing and the burning lumber thing in the background still creeps me out, it looks insane.

What kind of husband would put up with that tramping around?

And the long,long.... drawn out crawling back to the train scene is a riot.

I thought she got ran over but i guess she has a miscarriage?

What is the deal with the ending?

I don't know but I'm happy with thinking she get run over.

The ending is the best!! THE BEST!!!

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3 out of 4 people found the following comment useful :-
amazing, 12 November 2002

Author: spencerdouglass

This really is a great movie. The direction; the dialogue; and of course Davis. She pouts and prances through the whole thing like a caged lion. The ending is wonderful and fitting; the kind of thing that wouldn't fly in today's banal Hollywood offerings.

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