The Petrified Forest (1936)

My Review

Humphrey Bogart plays a bank robber holding a group of people hostage at a lonely diner in the Arizona desert in “The Petrified Forest.” Director Archie Mayo (“The Adventures of Marco Polo” 1938) put together an absorbing crime drama with the help of screenwriters Charles Kenyon and Delmer Daves. It was adapted from the 1934 play of the same name by Robert E. Sherwood.

The three principal actors turn in memorable performances – Bette Davis as the waitress, Leslie Howard as a hobo, and Humphrey Bogart as the bank robber. This was Bogart’s motion picture debut. Co-stars include Paul Harvey and Genevieve Tobin as Mr. and Mrs. Chisholm, Porter Hall and Charley Grapewin as Bette’s father and grandfather, Dick Foran as Bette’s lowbrow boyfriend, and Joseph Sawyer, Slim Thompson, and John Alexander as Boggie’s goons. The watchable “The Petrified Forest” was a modest success at the box office for producer Hal B. Wallis and Warner Bros. Pictures. It was filmed in California’s Mojave Desert and at Warner Bros. Studios soundstages in Burbank.