The Petrified Forest

This is a must-see for any fan of Bette Davis.She plays the daughter of a gas station / café owner at the edge of the petrified forest in Arizona, and works as a waitress there while immersing herself in poetry and dreaming of an escape to her mother’s home in France.Leslie Howard is the hitchhiking hobo from an unnamed European country who stops in for a meal and unintentionally steals Bette’s heart.Humphrey Bogart is the leader of a gang that’s on the run after robbing a bank and killing six people.The film is a romance / crime noir with comedic relief provided by Bette’s father (the bumbling but ultra-patriotic business owner who gets together with his incompetent friends to form a posse to capture the gang), and her grandfather (the chatty old timer who loves to rehash his past with the café’s patrons and is thrilled when the gangsters show up).As with any film of this era you’ll find the requisite melodrama, bloodless gunshot wounds, and overacting, but it’s all so beautifully done. I found Bogart to be the guiltiest of overacting and turning his gangster character into a cliché until I realized that back in 1936 this was all new. It wasn’t a cliché back then! Then I could enjoy the film for what it is.The Blu-ray was crisp and clear for the most part. Any film this old is gonna have some issue with graininess but it wasn’t terribly distracting. The extras are worth the time to watch.All in all this is a great film to add to your collection of classics.

The Petrified Forest is one of the greatest stage plays ever adapted to film. With a cast to die for (though Davis and Bogart were relative newcomers at the time), this is one of the most brilliant, entertaining, thought-provoking films I have ever watched. Leslie Howard is so much more than one could ever infer from his turn in Gone With The Wind, let alone the Scarlet Pimpernel (neither of which are to be sneezed at), here Howard is diamond-brilliant as a seeker who has lost himself and given up. Bogart as Duke Mantee, depression-era killer-with-a-heart is also showing much of his future brilliance here, even though he is only about fifth-billed. He dominates most of the movie as an equally defeated guy and his interplay with Howard is wonderful as they antagonize each other and ultimately develop a strange and tragic friendship. Bette Davis, not given much credit by armchair critics for this performance, is actually quite striking and her role larger and more important than usually acknowledged. She is almost an ingenue here, and it is hard to imagine it is the same person we came to love/hate only a year or two later, for decades. The rest of the cast is admirable as well, and the issue of race, though touched on only briefly, is powerfully put in a very few lines between the two black actors, John Alexander and Slim Thompson, have a few brief, but pointed, exchanges during the siege. This is a film not to be missed, one of the essentials of American cinema.

This movie is interesting, mainly because it is Bogart in his early going. At this point he was considered a washed up actor. I found this insane when I read it as how could Bogie ever be considered washed up? But never the less, we have Leslie Howard to thank, as he insisted on Bogie being in the film or he would not do it. Thank you, Mr. Howard!The film revolves around a young woman who longs to get away from her drab life at a gas station with her grandfather and her over friendly male co-worker when Howard comes along and appears to be her dream man. Enter Bogie who enters with his goons and take over the gas station in order to wait out the heat that is after him and his boys. Bogart plays the heel with malice but with humor of course and even walks like John Dillinger who inspired the film's villain.This is not a typical Bogart movie by any means, but his acting in this, as in any movie, is worth seeing. And Bette David and Leslie Howard play their parts very well also. More than worth seeing!

This movie, as an adapted Broadway play, succeeds due to the sheer power of the acting and dialogue, transcending the limits of the confined spaces of the roadside diner in which most of the action takes place. In addition, tight directing from Archie L. Mayo creates a convincing hostage drama in the most unlikely of settings in the semi-desert environment of a remote Arizona outpost. The atmosphere of the Great Depression permeates the story of a desperado, Duke Mantee, a violent criminal on the run, and played with Bogart's great gift for controlled intensity, who is prepared to use the people in the diner as collateral damage, if necessary, to enable him to escape. Bette Davis and Leslie Howard are brilliant as two young, idealistic people struggling to make ends meet in hard times who get caught up in the dangerous situation which unfolds. This 1936 movie makes full use of all the ingredients of cinema to become a memorable early noir classic which exerted considerable influence on the movies of the 40s and 50s in this genre.

Didn't enjoy this film; found it slow moving and boring.

A must have to complete a Bogart collection, but other than that, not so good.

Excellent film - well worth having. My husband loved it - having seen it originally.

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great pairing of Davis and Bogart