The Petrified Forest
The Petrified Forest is a 1936 American crime drama film directed by Archie Mayo and based on Robert E. Sherwood's 1934 drama of the same name. The motion picture stars Leslie Howard, Bette Davis and Humphrey Bogart.[1] The screenplay was written by Delmer Daves and Charles Kenyon, and adaptations were later performed on radio and television. The film is set in Petrified Forest National Park in Arizona.
This article is about the American film. For the Japanese film, see The Petrified Forest (1973 film). For a list of petrified forests, see Petrified wood § Occurrences.The Petrified Forest
The Petrified Forest
1934 play
by Robert E. Sherwood
Hal B. Wallis (executive producer, uncredited)
Owen Marks
Warner Bros.
- February 8, 1936 (United States)
82 minutes
English
According to Variety, Warner Bros. filmed two endings. Howard's character dies in one and survives in the other.[2]
In May 1945, Warner Bros. released another film based on Sherwood's play, Escape in the Desert. It pits a Dutch flyer walking across country to San Francisco and others against a bunch of escaped Nazi POWs.
Reception and legacy[edit]
Rotten Tomatoes rates the film 100% fresh based on 14 contemporary and modern reviews.[12]
The film is recognized by the American Film Institute in the 2003 AFI's 100 Years...100 Heroes & Villains in which Duke Mantee appears as a Nominated Villain.[13]
In January 1936, Variety wrote: “The picture sticks closely to the legit script... Playing the roles they created in the stage version are Leslie Howard and Humphrey Bogart – the former a soul-broken, disillusioned author, seeking, by wayfaring, to find some new significance in living, and the latter a killer, harried and surrounded by pursuers, revealing in his last moments a bewildered desperation which is not far removed from that of the writer. The scenes in which the desperado holds court, as he awaits his own doom, …are packed with skillfully etched drama and embroidered with appropriate touches of comedy. Impressively enacted is the romance between Howard and Bette Davis... Davis gives a characterization that fetches both sympathy and admiration. Bogart’s menace leaves nothing wanting."[2]
Writing for The Spectator in 1936, Graham Greene gave the film a mildly poor review. Exploring the transition between Mayo's film and the original stage play from Sherwood, Greene found that Sherwood's lofty philosophy suffered from the adaptation and that the film's "drama slackens under the weight" of the playwright's themes which he characterized as "rather half-baked". Greene praises Davis and Howard for their performances but suggests that "life itself, which crept in during the opening scene [...] crept out again, leaving us only with the symbols."[14]
Writing for Maclean's magazine at the time of the film's release, Ann Ross observed: “Very young people won't find The Petrified Forest much fun, but adults, who like wise and witty talk, with or without gunplay, should find it rewarding.”[12]
Writing for Sur in September 1936, Jorge Luis Borges said the film was “one of the most intense that I have seen.” He praised the “extraordinarily distinct characters”, observing that “once the allegorical motive is dismissed or relegated to a secondary level. the plot of The Petrified Forest—-the magical influence of approaching death on a random group of men and women—-seems admirable to me. In this film, death works like hypnosis or alcohol: it brings the recesses of the soul into the light of day.”[15]
After the film's release, Friz Freleng made the short-length Merrie Melodies cartoon parody, She Was an Acrobat's Daughter (1937), which portrays a cinema audience watching The Petrified Florist, starring Bette Savis and Lester Coward.[16]
In 1972, a take-off of the film titled "The Putrified Forest" was a sketch on The Carol Burnett Show, featuring Steve Lawrence and Paul Sand.[17]
The Warner Brothers sound stage on which the movie was filmed later became the home of Conan O'Brien's TBS television program.[18]
The 2017 album The Petrified Forest by ambient musician Biosphere uses many clips of dialog from the film.
Streaming audio