PETRIFIED FOREST is a bit strange version of gangster drama. It was created based on the homonymous theater play by Robert E. Sherwood. Similarly evoked. Dramaturgy is good and all the characters are in some way dissatisfied with their lives. They are constrained to make a key step towards a goal.This version is a really good combination of forms of theater and film media. The entire drama takes place in an imaginary indoors. The concentration of people in general is shown as being slaves and closed, conditioned by the achievements of money, power and security. In one night the whole drama played out with two characteristic of men (Alan - L.Howard, and Duke - H.Bogart), which seems to have been the cornerstone orbiting ellipse society that is built on democratic foundations, the traces of legendary heroes and war triumph. The two outlaws in different roles, one is actually a poet, the other a criminal. Deep within the society is well camouflaged, tinted and prohibited frustration that we call humanity. The margins and marginal aspects are also thematic coverage. The story is interesting. It rises and falls in the dialogue.Leslie Howard as Alan Squier is a young passerby, traveler and writer who wanders aimlessly. Depressed at odds with the whole world looks for meaning that can be among other things, love and death.Bette Davis as Gabrielle Maple is a girl who dreams of romantic dreams and read poetry. Falls in love with a man who tells her exactly what she wants to hear. With him, she can escape from reality. Bette Davis is terribly charismatic.Humphrey Bogart as Duke Mantee is a gangster and a murderer on the run. In his story the women and around her all spinning. Duke has resigned. This is crucial Bogart role in his early career.Characters are in a particular vortex of frustration and self-pity. The troubles are becoming aware of each other. Seen from a philosophical point of view this is a good movie. Acting suffer a little, while Cinematography is suffering far more.

A drifter is hitchhiking in the middle of Arizona's desert, but the cars passing by him are as eager to stop as the tumbleweeds. The opening shot of "The Petrified Forest" reflects our very loneliness : we all have goals, we all wander in our lives and we all depend on helpful people.The man makes it to a roadside diner to find people with seemingly purposeful lives. Gabby Maple, played by Bette Davis, is the owner's daughter, a young idealistic servant killing time by painting, reading French poetry and dreaming of visiting Bourges, her mother's hometown. Her father (Porter Hall) who couldn't keep his war-bride wife in USA, spends time, expressing an ironic bitterness toward anyone's bitter at his country. Dick Foran is Boze, a former college football player who sees Gabby's heart as a trophy to win. And Grampa (Charley Grapewin) keeps bragging on his status as the one guy "missed by Billy the Kid".The characters divide the world in two: those who look at the future, Boze and Gabby, and those who remember the past, angrily (the father) or enthusiastically (Grampa). Generation is an important factor since the film is set during the Great Depression, which more resonates as a state of mind, what kind of future such a gloomy period can ever paint, except for the younger generation, who didn't live, or merely, the War? Gabby thinks of the Great War as the event she owed her existence to, and the source of an existential quest. The mysterious voyager is Alan Squier, as if Alan was a wording of Alone, and with his dandy look and affable mannerisms, he belongs to another era and since eras condition states of mind, his is enigmatic. Indeed, the man, a writer, played by a suave and wonderful Leslie Howard, speaks in poetry and philosophy, a failed artist who wasn't cut either for marital commitment. Alan's constant amazement hardly hides what he is deep inside, a misfit, an outcast and an intellectual malcontent. Yet his detachment gives him an undeniable aura, he has no goal but is not turned to the past either. And if Gabby is enamored, she doesn't want to marry either, she just sees in him an invitation to escape.People with high hopes believe in their destiny, what they wait for is a sign, a little oddity that breaks up the morbid routine and enlighten moroseness with a light of hope. When Alan finally leaves, mooching a car belonging to wealthy tourists, the Chrisholms (Paul Harvey and Genevieve Tobin), you can see desperation in Gabby's eyes as if the only sparkle that could've her ignited it started to fade. But destiny didn't say its last word, the passengers are carjacked and when they all join the diner, they find a new guest : Duke Mantee.And it's one thing to have people blabbing about life and death, their views are elevated to another dimension when their lives are endangered. Mantee will be the trigger, so to speak, to a series of self-revelations. played by a youngish Humphrey Bogart, Duke Mantee is less an imitation of gangster-legend John Dillinger than Bogart's own approach to the role he played on the Broadway play, a man so worn-out, so tired of being pursued by Police, on having to keep his guard, that he ended up walking slowly and carefully as if he was at the verge of starting a shootout. He's a living tickling bomb, a man who's had enough. Even at 37, Bogart could illuminate the screen with tiredness, combined with a savage reputation and the fact that he risks his life, by waiting in the diner, for a mysterious Doris. Mantee is not the immigrant gangster; he's the quintessential, romantic desperado with an attitude, and a respect to the old-timers. Gramps loves him immediately, he's an authentic bandit, and inevitably, Mantee fascinates the hostages and there's more than Stockholm syndrome in that.There's an obvious identification between Duke and Alan, both are from the past, a vanishing breed, one by not acting enough, another by acting too much. Duke is the Yin to Alan's Yang and between them grows the genuine bonding of men who got nothing to lose, inspiring among the hostages, various reactions from various personalities, Mr. Chrisholm tries to buy his freedom as if the usual rules were still applicable. Boze tries his luck but Duke neutralizes him, he's the only to speak overtly against criminals, but while he's right in the absolute, in a life that became relative, he missed many points. Mrs. Chrisholm wants to run away with Duke, she exhorts Gabby to follow her dreams, unlike her. Duke's presence is a conscience's catalyst.Duke incarnates a sort of a new order, an escape from codes and conventions, sometimes with positive results, see how obedient the black chauffeur is, contrarily to Slim Hope, there's no segregation in gangster world since they reject everything from society, the good as the bad. And even a bad action can deliver from a bad condition. Duke will give Alan's life a meaning. Alive, he's useless, but dead, with his life insurance policy, he can build Gabby's future. After all, when Depression is caused by money, maybe money is the solution? Since people are valued through their wealth, so why not translate it into a generous sacrifice? Alan came to the end of his road to better start Gabby's. Their romance was doomed, because Gabby's happiness depended on Alan's act but for the brief time it lasted, it was magnificent.And if you don't believe it can happen, keep in mind that without Howard's insistence to have Bogart playing his part, Bogart's career would have fallen down. Bogart would be grateful for Howard, who sadly passed away during World War II, by calling his daughter Leslie. Howard was to Bogart what Duke was to Alan, what Alan was to Gabby, a life-changing blessing.

. . . 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!

I first watched this because I wanted to see Bogie, as Duke Mantee. I had no idea whatsoever that he wasn't the main character in this film, but the summary sounded promising enough. The film captivated my attention all throughout, and lo and behold - I fell in love with Leslie Howard. With no idea who he was, I started to fall in love with the character of Alan Squier, and as such, I ended up bawling at the ending. I do believe that he could have ended up living, but at the same time I understand why he did that. The tension throughout the whole hostage situation was very well-done, and kept me on the edge of my seat throughout. Bogie's character, "the last rugged apostle of individualism", as Alan puts it, was very believable as well.Bette Davis as Gabby Maple shined in her role, and her chemistry with Leslie Howard was great. The two of them together are just pure entertainment. The dialogue in this film is also brilliant, especially the way Alan talks, in a rather strange but not foreign way, and his exchanges with Duke, when he asks Duke to kill him. When Duke questions his sincerity, Alan replies, "I hope neither of us was kidding." Watch this film; you're really missing out if you don't!