Humphrey Bogart of the play, "a peach ... a roaring Western melodrama ... Humphrey Bogart does the best work of his career as an actor." Bogart said that the play "marked my deliverance from the ranks of the sleek, sybaritic, stiff-shirted, swallow-tailed 'smoothies' to which I seemed condemned to life." This, however, did not yet mean felt secure. Warner Bros. bought the screen rights to "The Petrified Forest". The play seemed perfect for the studio, which was famous for its socially realistic, urban, low-budget action pictures, especially for a public entranced by real-life criminals like John Dillinger (whom Bogart resembled) and Dutch
Humphrey Bogart film apparently rekindled Bogart's early love of boats. On his return to California he bought a classic mahogany Hacker-Craft runabout, which he kept until his death. The role of cantankerous skipper Charlie Allnutt won Bogart his only Academy Award in three nominations, for Best Actor in a Leading Role in 1951. Bogart considered his performance to be the best of his film career. He had vowed to friends that if he won, his speech would break the convention of thanking everyone in sight. He advised Claire Trevor, when she had been nominated for "Key Largo", to "just say you did