Leslie Howard

THE PETRIFIED FOREST

Warner Bros., 1936.  Directed by Archie Mayo.  Camera:  Sol Polito.  With Leslie Howard, Bette Davis, Humphrey Bogart, Charley Grapewin, Joe Sawyer, Genevieve Tobin, Dick Foran, Porter Hall.

Click for larger image

Click for larger images

Alan Squier, a poet-intellectual wandering across the country, comes to a desert gas station-café in Arizona's Petrified Forest.  He makes friends with the waitress, Gabrielle Maple, who shares his artistic aspirations and love of poetry.  The two find in each other quick sympathy and understanding, arousing the jealousy of Boze, the station attendant and Gabrielle's suitor.  Alan, however, is intent on continuing his journey and accepts a ride with the Chisholms, a couple who have stopped for gas.

On the road, they are stopped by Duke Mantee, a notorious killer who has escaped from prison.  Commandeering the Chisholm's car, Mantee and his three henchmen drive off, leaving the occupants afoot.  Alan and the Chisholms make their way back to the café, only to find Mantee there, holding Gabrielle, her grandfather, and Boze prisoners.  Mantee plans a getaway across the Mexican border, but is waiting for his girlfriend to arrive in another car.

At the mercy of Mantee, Alan and Gabrielle's friendship ripens, he seeing in her a kindred artistic spirit with something of the promise he once felt was his.  Gabrielle wants to go to France, her mother's birthplace, to study art, but Gramp Maple is holding on to his money.  Making over his life insurance―his only worldly possession―to Gabrielle, Alan proposes that Mantee kill him when he leaves, and the gangster amusedly consents.

The police, tracking Mantee, close in, and the gang prepares to escape.  Alan reminds the Duke of his promise, and Mantee shoots him down.  Content in the realization that he has enabled Gabrielle to carry on in the paths he had hoped to walk, Alan dies in her arms.

In this film, both Howard and Bogart played the roles they created in the original Broadway play.  In 1955, two decades after appearing in the stage version, Bogart portrayed "Duke Mantee" a third time in a television production of The Petrified Forest, with Henry Fonda as "Alan" and Lauren Bacall as "Gabrielle."

American Film Institute Catalog

Poster artwork courtesy of Gunnar and Dieter.  Additional photos courtesy of Gary.