La foresta pietrificata

"The Petrified Forest" (Archie Mayo, 1936) is most fascinating for its eager willingness to voice criticisms of wealth, power, authority, and inequality in America. Perhaps its acute social commentary should be unsurprising considering that Warner Brothers released the romantic crime drama during the depths of the Great Depression, but it is freshly relevant just the same, striking a note that would not be witnessed in the films of the forties and fifties. In speaking to the exploitation of workers, the snobbery of corporatism, the repression of women, blacks, artists, and literary poets, the reign of gangland crime, the American government's complicit abuse of power, and the loss of individuality in an increasingly meek age, "The Petrified Forest" manages an equal-opportunity iconoclasm that belies any party affiliations. Simply put, the film is unafraid to criticize America, and it's that sense of freedom that makes it particularly delightful. Best of all, "The Petrified Forest" voices its dissent through colorful witticisms and engaging banter, never taking itself too seriously or losing its sense of humor.

"The Petrified Forest" is also particularly notable for marking Humphrey Bogart's first major screen role as the nominal villain and escaped gangster Duke Mantee. The unshaven, pompadour-sporting Bogart is leering and menacing, brooding and growling and glowering, projecting the lonely, hard-bitten cynicism that would soon become his trademark. At the same time, however, he also emerges as a sympathetic and noble figure, one who transcends his criminal trappings through a fierce sense of integrity and individuality. Not only did these hard-boiled character traits become the template for the Bogart persona, but they also serve as a source of magnetism within the film's social milieu. Aside from the corporate oilman (Mr. Chisholm, played by Paul Harvey), Duke Mantee's hostages in a desert diner come to admire and salute his rugged individualism and defiance of the status quo, even as he endangers their lives. They yearn for the empowering resistance that he embodies and the gritty social rebelliousness that he wears on his prickly face, and when the film, before its final shootout, labels the confrontation as "Duke Mantee vs. the American government," it's clear that the sympathies of its principal characters reside with the Duke.

"The Petrified Forest" is also noteworthy for the dynamic contrast between its two black characters. One of them (Joseph, played by John Alexander) is virtually the embodiment of the pre-sixties Hollywood stereotype, a meek, shuffling, subservient chauffeur who always looks to his wealthy boss for paternalistic approval before opening his mouth. The other (Slim, played by Slim Thompson) is one of Duke Mantee's gangster associates, and he's clearly a liberated, autonomous, independent soul who offers his opinions on his own accord while mocking his "colored brother" for his subservience. He's almost a figure out of 1966 rather than 1936, and the difference between these two black men highlights the social conflict that the film heeds. On one side is the ruggedly individualistic and socially defiant Duke Mantee and a black man who marches to his own beat; on the other is a fat cat corporate tycoon and his docile and emasculated black servant, who, in turn, represent the American status quo. And so while Mantee and his gangsters are nominally the villains of "The Petrified Forest," at heart they constitute the film's heroes and rousing saviors. They are the men who obliquely brighten the hopeless despair and repressed frustrations of a trapped waitress who is secretly a talented painter (Gabby Maple, played by Bette Davis) and a fatalistically passionate French drifter-poet who is hitching his way to the Pacific Ocean (Alan Squier, played by Leslie Howard). They also seem to enliven several of the other repressed characters, from the restless wife of the cowardly tycoon (Mrs. Edith Chisholm, played by Genevieve Tobin), to an ex-college football player struggling to release his pent-up energies (Nick, played by Eddie Acuff), to an old man who longs for Billy the Kid, Mark Twain, and the legendary individualists of a bygone era (Gramp Maple, played by Charley Grapewin).

To be sure, the film doesn't explicitly paint Duke Mantee and his fellow gangsters as heroic saviors, but it's clear where the film's sympathies lie.

Ultimately "The Petrified Forest" is about an umbrella of misfits and their discontent with the repressive and exploitative American establishment, and it's that pulse of iconoclasm that keeps it audacious and provocative after all these decades.

I may have seen this film many, many years ago but I have no such recollection. I rented it last night and was amazed at the issues handled by a fine cast in a pre-World War II gangster film. A black chauffeur for a rich couple is not typically stereotyped but has a say as to how he does his job. A second black character is an equal member of the gang of fleeing desperadoes with no reference to his race and he engages in conduct no different than his cronies. A quick interchange between the two black characters is fascinating. The Rich Wife spills out her anger and frustration about a loveless marriage in terms as realistic for many today as it was when the film was made.

The love story is dramatic; it is also unreal. Leslie Howard, who was to die in World War II when the plane on which he was a passenger was shot down by the Luftwaffe (there's a strange story about THAT interception), relates his failed marital history with a genteel but real frankness not usually found in pre-war cinema.

Bette Davis and Humphrey Bogart shine in their roles. Bogart was starting off on his long career as a bad guy and does his promise come across. Davis is appealing with a naivete absent from most of her later films.

This is definitely a film with an agenda. Comments on patriotism seem suspended between caricature and seriousness. A sign, "Tipping Isn't American-Keep Your Change," hangs prominently in the desert cafe. Tipping isn't American? During the Depression? Methinks not.

One of the best films from a long-ago Hollywood that had its too often underappreciated cohort of serious thinkers.

"Petrified Forest" is both a fine film and a reminder of a Hollywood that occasionally showed its ability to address sensitive issues when even discussion of some of them was largely infra dig for most cinema moguls and their claques.

Here is one of the reasons I love old movies so much - intriguing writing, great acting, and interesting characters hold our attention throughout the movie without needing to resort to desperate all-out action, explosions, and computer effects.

Leslie Howard is a gentle intellectual roaming the Arizona desert who happens upon a quaint little cafe/gas station in the middle of nowhere, amidst sand and cactus. He immediately stirs the emotions of big-eyed waitress, Gabby (played by an adorably youthful Bette Davis), who holds a dream of going to France and finding herself in the world. But despite their quick and mutual adoration for one another there is impending tension hovering around their introduction, as news continually escalates about a killer named Duke Mantee (Humphrey Bogart) who's on the run and not far from the diner. Eventually, the infamous gangster shows up with some thugs and takes over the cafe, holding an array of wonderfully colorful characters hostage.

This was originally a play with Leslie Howard and Humphrey Bogart, and leading man Howard reportedly refused to do the picture without Bogie being in it. As a result, this is noteworthy also as Bogart's big breakout movie, and it would only be a few more years before he would hit super-stardom all on his own. Humphrey seems to put a lot into his gangster character, investing Duke with the necessary evil demeanor, yet also with a hint of heart and soul. Leslie Howard and Bette Davis make a wonderful pair, and both give fine performances; which makes the potentially talky twenty minute scene where they first get acquainted actually completely captivating. Charley Grapewin is delightful and funny as Davis' chattering grandpa. Dick Foran, playing a strapping and comical football star who pumps gas while always trying to woo Gabby, was very good in this film and it's probably the best work I've seen him do in movies, before he wound up as a "B" player for Universal. His character here is in complete contrast from the heroes and "singing cowboys" I've been used to seeing him play.

At first watch I wasn't completely satisfied with the ending (which I will not reveal) but after thinking about it I came to the decision that it really fit the story well after all, and is actually very poetic. ***1/2 out of ****

Robert Sherwood's The Petrified Forest had a run in 1935 on Broadway for the first half of that year. Warner Brothers bought the film rights and shot it the following year. Leslie Howard and at his insistence, Humphrey Bogart, came west to repeat their stage roles.

For Bogart it was a return to bigger acclaim than he had gotten in his first trip to Hollywood in the early Thirties. He hadn't made much of an impression then, but he was in Tinseltown to stay after The Petrified Forest and his frightening characterization of criminal on the run, Duke Mantee.

The Petrified Forest takes place in a filling station/greasy spoon truck stop on the edge of the Arizona desert. About as desolate a place as you'll find. Three generations of the Maple family own and operate the place. Grandpa Charley Grapewin, Father Porter Hall, and daughter Bette Davis who dreams about the fact there's more to life than this nowhere place. Bette also has to contend with former college football star Dick Foran and his clumsy efforts at courtship.

Along comes Alan Squier played by Leslie Howard who's a blase world weary vagabond who's seen better days. He and Davis hit it off and she comes to realize that there is a great big world out there.

The first third of the movie involves the two of them and I have to say that in the mouths of players less skilled than these two, Robert Sherwood's dialog would have sounded like so much romantic drivel.

For Davis, Gabrielle Maple is a unique part and not one she'd play later on as her features hardened. An intelligent and romantic young girl is not a typical Bette Davis part, but she does bring it off.

As for Howard, Alan Squier is a typical part for him. Not too much different than Ashley Wilkes or Philip Scott from The 49th Parallel.

The remainder of the film is when Duke Mantee and his gang take refuge at the filling station and hold captive anyone who's there or wanders in. A lot of souls are bared under Mantee's guns and the climax is spectacular.

Two other actors who repeated their Broadway roles are Joseph Alexander who's the chauffeur of a rich couple who stop at the filling station and Slim Thompson a member of Mantee's gang. Both of these players are black.

Joseph Alexander is a menial and Slim Thompson really rubs it in to him, telling him the day of liberation has come for some time now. In 1936 that was practically revolutionary.

Alexander had a substantial career, but I have no idea what happened to Thompson. He had no other film credits and only one other stage appearance on Broadway in the original production of Anna Lucasta.

Moviegoers of all generations should thank Leslie Howard for insisting on Humphrey Bogart being in this film and helping to create a screen legend.

A glorious movie based on a very wise and compassionate play. It is a savage indictment of a lifeless civilization. Confronted by death in a hostage situation, one elderly wife bitterly reproaches her husband of having stifled her personality: "You took my soul, you stenciled it on a card and filed it". Leslie Howard gives up his quest for bliss, and seeks to die in style for his beloved. Bogart represents nature lashing out against man. Alas, few movies from the thirties achieve this height of artistry. Hollywood makes a mistake when drawing plots from novels rather than plays. The concentrated compactness and intimacy of a play cannot be had from a sprawling novel.