The Petrified Forest (1936)

Amazing worth wacthing. So good. Biased but well made with many good points.

Excellent and certainly provocative... If nothing else, the film is a real conversation starter.

Close shines in drama with strong language, adult themes.

This is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a very long time. You have to go and see this on the big screen.

Considering this film was made just a few years after motion pictures started "talking", it's a great movie thanks to budding talents of Leslie Howard, Bette Davis, and Humphrey Bogart. Clearly, their soon-to-be discovered star power propels the somewhat melodramatic story line. Within a few three years, all three would be superstars.Davis flits dreamily from scene to scene as a dreamy-eyed but tired, somewhat life-edgy waitress at a dump of a 'gas stop' in the middle of nowhere. Soon her life will be propelled into her dreamed-of destiny by the conflicting characters of Leslie Howard, who exudes line after line of platitudes, whimsy, and advise one can almost gag on it after awhile..thankfully Humphrey Bogart thrusts himself angrily and menacingly as a gangster on the lam running for Mexico with his cronies. The three decidedly different characters whirl around each other while the remaining cast drifts around them almost listlessly in contrast.Stellar directing clearly at work weaving the contrasting roles seamlessly. Each primary actor could easily hold court by their own talent power.Very entertaining, engaging with a titular splash of thought-stuff humming beneath the lines.

This is one of Bogart's first roles and boy does he steal the film. He has a presence that dominates the film. His "Duke" character is gangster at gangster's best. The problem with this film is the irritating performance of Leslie Howard. His character is so repulsive and obnoxious. Not an ounce of reality or common sense to the character. I just kept saying, come on Duke, kill him already. Come to think of it, there were a a few unbelievable and irritating characters in this film that just made overall enjoyment of this film impossible. This is the classic example of a play trying to make the transition to the big screen and failing quite uncomfortably. However, the film reveals the early brilliance of the legend that is Humphrey Bogart.

. . . in a piece that looks ultra low-budget, and rings as false as an Enron stock prospectus. Ashley Wilkes, written up by Margaret Mitchell as the moving force behind the Red States war on the Blue ones, explains here why his side lost: "If I had a gun, I wouldn't know what to do with it." THE PETRIFIED FOREST also indicates WHAT HAPPENED TO BABY JANE: she took her share, and high-tailed it to France. This flick's true confessions drag on for so long we even learn why "Uncle Henry" was so fearful of Elvira Gulch: Billy the Kid once took a couple drunken pot shots at him, and he's been a weak-minded drunk ever since. Perhaps one of Filmdom's biggest questions is why "Rick" is so devil-may-care as he nonchalantly guns done Nazis in CASABLANCA. He joins in playing Truth or Dare here as well, revealing "I spent most of my life since I grew up in jail, and it looks like I'll spend the rest of it dead." While THE PETRIFIED FOREST proves to be a true "Mystery Spot" for solving some of history's greatest riddles, the one thing it cannot explicate is how such a Pretentious, Logorrheaic, Preposterous script got shot in the first place!

The Petrified Forest is directed by Archie Mayo and adapted to screenplay by Charles Kenyon and Delmer Daves from the play of the same name written by Robert E. Sherwood. It stars Leslie Howard, Bette Davis, Humphrey Bogart, Genevieve Tobin and Dick Foran. Music is by Bernhard Kaun and cinematography by Sol Polito.Undeniably from the off you know this is adapted from a play, in fact such is the obviousness of the painted sets it's basically a play on film, but it matters not. For The Petrified Forest is an ode to language by way of vivid dialogue, a love of memorable characters, dealing out an unquenchable thirst for dreamers, loners and the regressed; and it unleashed a wonderfully primal Bogart on the masses.You bet your last dollar that it's talky and claustrophobic, joyously so, characterisations are rich and there's intelligence of thought in the writing, this is not merely a bunch of stock characters holed up in a service station, held hostage by gangster Duke Mantee (Bogart) and his gunny cohorts, each person here represents a different strand of mankind and it's fascinating stuff. Especially the contrast between Bogart's scowly criminal and Howard's disillusioned intellectual, while two polar opposite black characters also make for a clinically interesting subtext. It all builds patiently towards a socko ending, no cheating to be found here.Beautifully performed by the cast, a treat for the eyes and ears and to my mind it be required viewing for the classic film fan. 9/10