Rent The Petrified Forest (1936)

Poetic Realism. - The Petrified Forest review by Steve

This is famous for Humphrey Bogart’s star making performance as killer Duke Mantee, modelled on depression era gangster, John Dillinger. But the best part is the opening 30 minutes of romantic dalliance between Leslie Howard and Bette Davis. She is a dreamer trapped in the Arizona desert. He is a rootless poet running low on hope. Their ethereal chemistry is very poignant.

They meet in The Petrified Forest, a desert of fossils, a wilderness where obsolescent creatures come to die; like Mantee, the last of the western outlaws, or the poet who is a disillusioned, exhausted idealist. A few other archetypes gather in the lonely diner where Bette marks time as a waitress: there’s a patriot, an athlete, a wealthy couple…

After the exceptional opening, the dialogue becomes aimless and overwrought. But the film maintains its grip. This is too early for film noir, but it has that feel. Partly because of the slowly darkening restaurant as the night falls, but mainly because of its sadness, its atmosphere of pessimism and malign destiny.

Bogart has a presence, and he dominates later scenes, but he is awkward and not yet a star. The staging of Robert Sherwood’s poetic realist play is rich and full of mythology and wistful symbolism. But it's the melancholy rapport between Howard and Davis that cuts deepest, both searching for meaning in the haunted desert as world sinks into the depression and fascism. 

It Shouldn't Work–but it does - The Petrified Forest review by griggs

The Petrified Forest sets the stage for high drama—Humphrey Bogart's brandishing guns, after all—but curiously, no one seems bothered. What starts as a hostage situation quickly turns into something far more talkative. Leslie Howard effortlessly steals the limelight, even with Bette Davis and Bogie in the room. The film drifts into philosophical musings and flirtations. It really shouldn't work—but it does, seductively so. A touch more peril might've helped, but it's oddly delightful.