The Petrified Forest

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Summary: Great transition from stage play to film
Review: Leslie Howard and Humphrey Bogart were in the original Broadway play. And this was made again into a film called "Escape in the Desert." Because I knew this movie was supposed to have Humphrey Bogart in it, it was almost like watching two movies, the one before Humphrey Bogart appeared, and the one with Humphrey Bogart. The actual filming location is Red Rock Canyon, California, USA. With one this is a story a lot of people coming from different directions in their life. Together they evaluate and solve their problems the best they can in a short given time. The beauty in this movie is the action and reaction of the characters.
A similar action and reaction movie that comes to mind is "Key Largo (1948)". However in this movie Humphrey Bogart gets to be a good guy. After these two movies, one that you need to look for is "Outward Bound (1930)" with Leslie Howard.

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Summary: INCISIVE CHARACTER STUDY....
Review: Part of Warner Bros. gangster package, "The Petrified Forest" isn't so much a gangster film as it is a character study of various people held hostage by a gangster and his gang. Set at a run-down gas station/cafe in a section of the Arizona desert called Black Mesa, it tells of vicious thug Duke Mantee (Humphrey Bogart) taking over the station while waiting to flee with his moll (who's never seen). The group includes a wandering, aimless writer (Leslie Howard), a dreamy waitress named Gabrielle (Bette Davis), her father who owns the cafe and the grandfather (who's a hoot). Gaby (Davis) loves poetry and yearns to go to France while the writer, Alan (Howard) is bone-weary and seems to have a death wish. Other hostages include a wealthy couple and their chauffer whose car Mantee hijacks. Based on the play, "Forest" seems stagy on film yet it bristles with excellent dialogue and performances. The setting is claustrophobic but is meant to be. With the wind howling, a sandstorm brewing, tumbleweeds blowing around---the air seethes with tension and isolation. The DVD print shows it's age in spots but is overall decent. As a time capsule of Davis and Bogart early in their careers it's worth watching just for that. But the film stands on it's own as a good melodrama and a chance to see how fine an actor Leslie Howard was. He and Davis had done "Of Human Bondage" together in 1934 and here they basically team well only with Davis in a vastly different role (a good girl). Very recommended for vintage film lovers. Enjoy.

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Summary: The Petrified Forest: Still Relevant
Review: There are probably many reasons why THE PETRIFIED FOREST is as watchable today as it was in the 1930's. It would be easy to point to the collection of stars in it: Bogie, Bette Davis, Leslie Howard, but for me its appeal becomes obvious only after multiple viewings. The inner charm of the film lies in the quickened relationship between Ms. Davis and Mr. Howard. At the start of the film, Gaby, played by Davis, is clearly unhappy with her life, her job, her dumb jock boyfriend. She seems to be waiting for something to happen to her in a dramatic way. Enter Leslie Howard, who supplies instant magnetism and charm as the itinerant intellectual in pursuit of his own dream in California that takes a detour in a scruffy diner in the American desert. Much of the charm of the first half of the film lies in the reversal of roles of who pursues whom. Typically, the male chases the female, but in a manner later duplicated numerous times by David Janssen as the Fugitive, Howard strolls into a sleepy small town environment wherein the local lovely simply takes a gander at the Handsome Smart Stranger and falls for him to such an extant that she is willing to run off with him. Howard clearly cares for her too, but he has the smarts to know that the odds are stacked against them, so off he goes. Now if the movie had ended right there, it still would have been a fascinating period piece. As soon as Howard takes off, a crew of bank robbers headed by Humphrey Bogart force him and a wealthy married couple to return to the diner as hostages. It is at this point that director Archie Mayo complicates and intensifies the relation between Davis and Howard by having the wealthy married matron interact with Davis such that the movie takes on a tender tone of 'what might have been' for that matron. This matron tells Bette Davis her own life story which parallels what Davis' life might have been had she married for reasons other than love. The matron describes her marriage decades earlier to a wealthy banker prompted by her greedy parents. Not a day goes by, she warns, that she does not regret giving up her true love. The matron exhorts Davis to 'go for it.' From this point, the film revolves around a complicated triangle of the robbers, Davis and Howard, and the pursuit of the law. By the film's end, Howard sacrifices his life so that Bette Davis can have hers.
THE PETRIFIED FOREST is justly known for the steely performance of Bogie as killer Duke Mantee, but for me, what made the movie click was the blossoming yet doomed relation between the thwarted lovers. Director Mayo seems to suggest that the petrification of the trees outside the diner need not include a similar hardening of the hearts of the actors. Take a chance, the matron urged. Maybe we all should.