STUFF YOU GOTTA WATCH - The Petrified Forest

THE PETRIFIED FOREST

(1936)
With With Leslie Howard, Bette Davis, Humphrey Bogart, Dick Foran, Charles Grapewin
Directed by Archie Mayo
Black and White
Review by JL

Luckily, the poet's pretentious blather was registered as a deadly weapon I usually try to appreciate the context of the times before I label a film as "dated," but no matter how thought-provoking THE PETRIFIED FOREST might have seemed in the 1930s, it just doesn't cut it for me any more. The main problem is Leslie Howard's character of wandering poet Alan Squire (dressed in tweed and smoking a pipe, in case you forget he's a wandering poet), who spouts more pretentious blather than can be found in the collected works of Rod McKuen. When he's indulging in dime-store philosophy and yammering on about "I belong to a vanishing race, I'm one of the intellectuals...Brains without purpose! Noise without sound! Shape without substance!", I just want to tweak his nose and dunk his tie in his soup. Bette Davis, usually one of my favorite actresses, doesn't help matters by shouting most of her lines without any apparent thought as to what she's saying. It's Humphrey Bogart in his breakthrough role that makes the film worthwhile for me, but even he was stronger playing similar gangster characters in other films. I know THE PETRIFIED FOREST is regarded as a classic by many, but I suggest checking out KEY LARGO, a better telling of roughly the same story, minus the overwrought drivel. I give it an extra star for being the film that gave Bogey a career. - JL