Warner Home Video continues its series of catalog DVD releases with
The Pertrified Forest (1936), available both singly and as part of The Warner Bros. Gangsters Collection box set. A glance at the other titles in that set (
Little Caesar (1930),
The Public Enemy (1931),
Angels with Dirty Faces (1938),
The Roaring Twenties (1939),
White Heat (1949)), raises a fair question: is
The Pertrified Forest a gangster movie? Upon consideration, it would seem to be odd-man-out of the group.
First, while the other five movies in the set all retain a classic urban setting and contain numerous scenes of shootouts, drive-bys, and elaborate servings of justice,
The Pertrified Forest, by contrast, is adapted from a high-minded stage production (by Robert E. Sherwood) and features outlaws only as part of a larger societal assemblage, meant to serve as a microcosm. Set in a remote desert location, the story features Romantic leads (with a capital "R") who ponder weighty issues of society and humanity. In fact, the movie has more in common with a "social problem" film like William Wyler's
Dead End (1937). All that said, can anyone name the gangster that Humphrey Bogart plays in
Dead End? In
The Pertrified Forest Bogart is Duke Mantee, one of the most unforgettable gangster portrayals of the era, and a famous star-making role for the actor, then struggling to make a name for himself after years of small parts on the stage and screen. All of the characters in the Sherwood story discuss the criminal psychology of Mantee, even when he is offscreen. Bogart's menace is palpable and this aspect of the production alone qualifies
The Pertrified Forest as one of the most important Gangster films of the 1930s.
The film opens in the Arizona Desert, as we meet the staff of a combined gas station/diner: WWI veteran Jason Maple (Porter Hall), his daughter Gabby (Bette Davis), her Gramp (Charley Grapewin), and handyman Boze (Dick Foran). As is more than implied, all of the men in this group are, if not "petrified," at least stuck re-living their past glories as war hero, football star, and local settler. Only Gabby looks ahead and wishes to leave the barren desert for a rich and artistic life abroad. Various outsiders come to the diner: Alan Squire (Leslie Howard) is a European intellectual, self-aware to the point of self-parody. He is wandering the country by foot, and while he is quick to label those around him, he exhibits great charm while doing so. Squire admires Gabby's optimism and cultured enthusiasm (she paints and reads poetry). A high society couple named Chisolm (Genevieve Tobin and Paul Harvey), along with their chauffer Joseph (John Alexander), are taken hostage by notorious gangster Duke Mantee and his gang, on the lam from Oklahoma. Everyone ends up back at the Black Mesa Bar-B-Q, where Mantee controls the situation, but not all of the emotions on display.
There is plenty of interesting back story to the production of
The Pertrified Forest, which is dealt with at length in the DVD extras. A 15m. featurette called
The Petrified Forest: Menace in the Desert and the audio commentary by Bogart biographer Eric Lax both emphasize the crucial part the role of Mantee played in the career of Humphrey Bogart. It seems Warner Bros. signed Howard and Bogart to reprise their roles from Robert E. Sherwood's Broadway play, but while Bogart was en route to California, resident studio tough-guy Edward G. Robinson was given the script to look over. Robinson was being paid for three films a year by Warners whether they were made or not, and he was overdue for a role. Robinson liked the script and was initially enthusiastic. He reconsidered, however, when he realized that the studio planned to tout the Howard-Davis teaming in their publicity. The Robinson angle became a moot point when Howard caught wind of the notion and famously threatened to walk off the project if Bogart was not given the role. Bogart was paid (as a freelancer) $750 a week with a three week guarantee, or about the same as his initial Warner Bros. salary four years earlier. He brought his Broadway wardrobe West to revive his faux-Dillinger look as Duke Mantee. The results, of course, proved to be as sensational as the stage production had been, and resulted in a long-term contract with Warners. The DVD commentary and featurette also highlight the importance of Leslie Howard to the project. Howard wielded power as one of the producers of the Sherwood play, and of course in 1936 he was a major star both in America and Britain. As is not lost on the commentators of this DVD, there is irony in the fact that the type of movie stardom that Bogart would soon represent almost completely supplanted the cultured European leading man image that Howard exemplified. As for Bettie Davis, she had gotten the best notices of her career to that point while teamed with Howard for a prestigious production of W. Somerset Maugham's
Of Human Bondage (1934). That film was done on loan-out to RKO Pictures, so Warner Bros. was more than happy to capitalize on the re-teaming of the pair for a home-grown project. (They were reunited for the third and final time in the WB romantic comedy
It's Love I'm After (1937), also directed by Archie Mayo).
The transfer quality on the main feature is excellent, although there are some problems on the source print, namely slight grain and a few stray lines near what would have been reel changes. The audio contains some crackles but the dialogue is crystal clear, and is a further indication that some of the best restoration being routinely performed today is in this area. Like the other DVDs in the Warner Bros. Gangsters Collection,
The Pertrified Forest can be viewed as part of a Leonard Maltin-introduced "Warner Night at the Movies." This entertaining program includes a generous sampling of other 1936 fare, including the trailer for
Bullets or Ballots, one of the first films Bogart made under his new post-
Petrified Forest contract with Warners (ironically in support of Edward G. Robinson); a Vitaphone musical short called
Rhythmitis, featuring lanky hoofer Hal LeRoy; and Friz Freleng's
Coo Coo Nut Grove, a spot-gag cartoon with wall-to-wall movie star-as-animal caricatures. An audio-only bonus is a radio adaptation of
The Petrified Forest broadcast in January, 1940 on CBS'
Screen Guild Players program. It features Bogart and, in the other lead roles, Joan Bennett and Tyrone Power.
For more information about
The Petrified Forest, visit
Warner Video. To order
The Petrified Forest, go to
TCM Shopping.
by John M. Miller
