Directed by Archie Mayo, "The Petrified Forest" gave a tremendous boost to Bogart's screen career by providing him with a ready-made showcase for his talent
The movie was a very faithful adaptation of the play as it told of a group of diverse personalities who find themselves held at bay in a small service-station-restaurant by a ruthless gunman and his gang on the run from pursuing police There were heavily symbolic overtones involving the overrunning of the doomed intellectuals by corruptive brute force
Into this truly fragile framework, the screenplay weaves a tapestry of penetrating character studies First there is Alan Squier (Leslie Howard), a disillusioned writer and intellectual who realizes he is a member of a vanishing breed of men whose visions of a Utopian existence have given way to the oppressive realities of a world that no longer has any room for his type of dreamer Frustrated and quietly despairing, he meets a dreamer of another type, Gabrielle Maple (Bette Davis). She shares Squier's love of beauty and poetry and dreams of fleeing her repressing entrapment at the restaurant and traveling to France
Into their world of fanciful idealism enters Humphrey Bogartthe reality, the brute force which threatens not only the dreamers but all of society It is a finely truthful portrait of ultimate evil, magnificently played by Bogart with all the uncompromising ferocity the role demanded It was one of Bogart's finest portrayals and it was the model, although considerably restrained, he would follow for the next years of his career
Final note: Duke Mantee was a killer on the run He was not a big-shot businessman The assumption put into the audience's mind was that this mobster was a bank robber, a hold-up artist, an escaped convict... but never a wealthy criminal controlling an empire of corruption from plush offices on the 18th floor
Approximately twenty years later, Bogart recreated his original role in a television production of "The Petrified Forest." Directed by Delbert Mann, the play featured Lauren Bacall in the Davis role and Henry Fonda in Howard's part... After all those years, Bogart still had the character down perfectly and received excellent notices
The movie was a very faithful adaptation of the play as it told of a group of diverse personalities who find themselves held at bay in a small service-station-restaurant by a ruthless gunman and his gang on the run from pursuing police There were heavily symbolic overtones involving the overrunning of the doomed intellectuals by corruptive brute force
Into this truly fragile framework, the screenplay weaves a tapestry of penetrating character studies First there is Alan Squier (Leslie Howard), a disillusioned writer and intellectual who realizes he is a member of a vanishing breed of men whose visions of a Utopian existence have given way to the oppressive realities of a world that no longer has any room for his type of dreamer Frustrated and quietly despairing, he meets a dreamer of another type, Gabrielle Maple (Bette Davis). She shares Squier's love of beauty and poetry and dreams of fleeing her repressing entrapment at the restaurant and traveling to France
Into their world of fanciful idealism enters Humphrey Bogartthe reality, the brute force which threatens not only the dreamers but all of society It is a finely truthful portrait of ultimate evil, magnificently played by Bogart with all the uncompromising ferocity the role demanded It was one of Bogart's finest portrayals and it was the model, although considerably restrained, he would follow for the next years of his career
Final note: Duke Mantee was a killer on the run He was not a big-shot businessman The assumption put into the audience's mind was that this mobster was a bank robber, a hold-up artist, an escaped convict... but never a wealthy criminal controlling an empire of corruption from plush offices on the 18th floor
Approximately twenty years later, Bogart recreated his original role in a television production of "The Petrified Forest." Directed by Delbert Mann, the play featured Lauren Bacall in the Davis role and Henry Fonda in Howard's part... After all those years, Bogart still had the character down perfectly and received excellent notices