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 aid of Allen's bumbling character, a movie critic with women troubles whose "sex life has turned into the 'Petrified Forest'". In 1997, the United States Postal Service honored Bogart with a stamp bearing his image in its "Legends of Hollywood" series as the third figure to be recognized. At a formal ceremony attended by Lauren Bacall, and the Bogart children, Stephen and Leslie, Tirso del Junco, the chairman of the governing board of the USPS, provided an eloquent tribute: "Today, we mark another chapter in the Bogart legacy. With an image that is small and yet as powerful as the