Any other actress than Bette Davis couldn't have even made this trashy a film rate as high as it does. Bette was winding up her contract with Warner Brothers and Jack Warner gave her a stinker as a going away present. So Bette does what Bette always did when she got a part like Rosa Moline, just shout her way through and pull out all the restraints.For reasons that defy any belief Bette thinks she's way much better than the other citizens of her small Wisconsin town. Or at least destined for better things. How she gets them is to seduce a millionaire played by David Brian who has a hunting lodge in the area. He lives in Chicago and she dreams of going to Chicago like it was the Emerald City. And a few emeralds wouldn't be bad either.The problem is that she's married to kindly country doctor Joseph Cotten who's content with his life. That's a good deal of the problem with this film. Cotten is one of my favorite players, he's a person of great class always in his prime years. The man definitely qualified for sainthood. Davis looks so bad because Cotten is so good. The two have no chemistry at all together. That in a strange way helps the film which is about a pair of unhappy marrieds. But there was no way Cotten could have done much with a character who is as big a milksop as Dr. Moline.You will look far and wide among thousands of cans of film or DVDs or VHSs and will never find a character in any of them as incredibly self centered as Bette Davis's Rosa Moline. Everyone quotes her 'what a dump' line, but she's constantly saying even to herself 'I'm Rosa Moline' as if Hershey wraps her fecal matter and sells it as chocolate.And talking about a dump, when she reaches for the big moment Brian takes one royal dump on her. But that doesn't deter Bette in the slightest. She has no conscience whatever even to committing a couple of murders.Max Steiner's original music earned Beyond The Forest an Oscar nomination. Within his original score is interwoven the classic popular song Chicago which acts like a siren call luring Bette to what she feels will be good times and good living in the Windy City with Brian.Beyond The Forest is well remembered by Davis fans because of how she gave one of the most brazen and overacted performances in the history of cinema to breathe life into an unbelievable character.

Many have blasted this film as pure camp, some without having even seen it, I'm sure. While this is no masterpiece, it really isn't that bad--it plays for the most part like a standard noirish "woman's film" from the forties. Since this sort of thing was Davis' specialty, she isn't particularly out of place here. Some of the dialog is dated and over the top, but not nearly so much as this film's detractors would have one believe. What truly stays in the mind is Bette's awful appearance--she's obviously too old to play the part of the small town sexpot, Rosa Moline. Beyond that, she's made to wear some awful black fright wig that makes her prematurely saggy face look positively witch like! As a romantic interest, she stretches our sense of credibility (however, I will allow for the fact that black Maria Montez type hair was probably thought sexy in those days-and she does grasp a sense of how a faded small town belle might try to put herself across, as she swaggers around with false bravado in her tight dresses and sexy ---- me shoes. All in all, not as bad as they say--the whole project probably shocked Davis herself (as well as quite a few critics who generally not kind to it) into realizing that her leading lady days were numbered. A strange career move in the lengthly career of a great, if misunderstood star.

I would not do heaven's work well,I pray the devil comes and takes me,To stand in the fiery furnaces of hell. (Bruce Springsteen)"Madame Bovary" meets evil.Actually,the central character is so evil,that King Vidor felt compelled (or the producers suggested he did) to "warn" the audience : in a nutshell,knowing where evil lays helps us to fight against it.A long-haired prodigious Bette Davis plays a modern Madame Bovary:like Flaubert's heroine ,she is married to a poor country doctor (Joseph Cotten)who treats his patients for free;like her,she dreams of luxury (the scene when she puts on Roman's fur coat is revealing),of leaving her little provincial town (a voice-over at the beginning tells us that the train seems to whisper:" Chi-Cago Chi-Cago");like her ,she has a flighty lover .There the comparison ends:Rosa Molines epitomizes evil.She was born to be a queen and she won't be satisfied till she owns everything.With the exception of the short scene in the woods where she tells her husband she's pregnant by him -look at her hair !- ,Rosa never stops,she pushes people out of her way;even when she is humiliated -the scenes "beyond the forest" in Chicago-,she knows she will not lose,cause she is completely unscrupulous.Unlike Pearl (Jennifer Jones) in "Duel in the sun"(1946) or Ruby Gentry (Jones again) in the eponymous movie(1952),Rosa's only motives are money,luxury and being a socialite in Chicago.Pearl and Ruby led the men they loved to ruin,but they did love them.Rosa only loves herself.The "abortion" scene -which strongly recalls Gene Tierney's in Stahl's "Leave her to heaven" (1946)- was probably the main reason for the "warning" lines" during the cast and credits.You should see these three Vidor works one after the others:"Duel in the Sun" "Beyond the Forest" and "Ruby Gentry" .These are superior melodramas.

I saw this movie on my 21st B-day, and was really loaded... I loved it!! Then forgot what it was called.The shot with Bette on the porch swing and the burning lumber thing in the background still creeps me out, it looks insane. What kind of husband would put up with that tramping around? And the long,long.... drawn out crawling back to the train scene is a riot. I thought she got ran over but i guess she has a miscarriage? What is the deal with the ending?I don't know but I'm happy with thinking she get run over.The ending is the best!! THE BEST!!!