petrify forest ( 1936 ) to say that leslie howard be perfect be to explain why petrified forest be sometimes a great movie . it a movie about performance in word more than deed and and his and among the three famous lead and be the most leading . howard sense of ease and his struggle for mean without get pompous and and his understanding of the other people from the inside be truly the meat and and the potato and of the movie . and the play and which he star in the previous year . the movie remain a play and set mostly in one colorful ( black and white ) roadside restaurant and water stop on the edge of the desert . for an action picture and it sometimes talk too much and and it lack what you would call action . but that because it isn not an action picture and it a literate exploration of the end of the frontier . this be exemplify by everyone and include howard a a footloose and heartbroken loner aptly name alan squire and escape the culture of civilization in europe for the real thing and the old wild west . and he discover that the wild west doesn not really exist any more and and that he a man out of step with the time . except that for a brief moment and the past resurfaces and namely a a gangster and a true desperado in the form of humphrey bogart and represent the end of the romanticized outlaw . like howard bookish romantic and bogart character and duke mantee ( another great name ) and be out of step . and duke know it just as much a alan and but his way of show it be with grunt and violence . still and the two men and opposite in some way and be in the same dilemma and and they understand it and and acknowledge it in each other . the witness for this meeting of mind and of poetry and both fine and rough and be all character and caricature of various kind the old timer who be both funny and blind to the truth of what happen and the rich man who be so above it all he can not take the time to be afraid and and his wife and who see the romance of alan position and and who see how her own life be a tragedy . the other star and of course and be bette davis and still fairly new to hollywood ( just five year in ) but nevertheless well establish with almost thirty movie make . she shin here in a role that only demand a kind of honest and starry attitude that she nail . she might not have the more moving innocence of and say and olivia de haviland and she provide a more likely spark and frontier spirit and repackaged for the 1930s . the year of the movie release be the depth of the depression and with roosevelt run for reelection and the american west know more for it hardship than any sense of hope . but it now four year after the end of prohibition and the real gangster of early warner brother film ( include bogart a a thug and along with davis and appear briefly in the great pre code 1932 film and three on a match ) be mostly go from real life . likewise and the western villain like dillinger ( the model for duke mantee ) and ma barker and and of course bonnie and clyde and be all dead by 1934 and 1935. so the play and write in 1935 by multiple pulitzer winner robert sherwood and be a timely success before be adapt for film and with leslie howard produce for warner brother . the result be almost bind for success and and though the movie be know now mostly a bogart breakthrough movie ( his early film have him typecast a a second string villain ) and it be really not bogart who dominate it and but howard . and of course and the writing and the play itself and which sound sometimes date to our ear . but imagine the theme of redemption and and love and and escape ( in all sens ) and you can hear something powerful for it time .