The Petrified Forest: Menace in the Desert (2005 Video) User Reviews

"Film noir is more of a movement . . . "

[oscaralbert · 7/10 · 20 March 2014]

" . . . than a genre," says one of the talking heads on THE PETRIFIED FOREST: MENACE IN THE DESERT (I'd specify WHICH one, but I'm afraid that would allow a film school student to include it in a term paper, complete with attribution, without even bothering to watch this 2005 "Making of" for herself). USC film prof Dr. Drew Casper is joined by author Eric Lax (who seems to be on every other classic movie Featurette), and film historians Alain Silver, Mark A. Viera, Robert Sklar, and Andrew Sarris as the other talking heads, whose pithy observations are mixed together with a generous number of illustrative clips from THE PETRIFIED FOREST itself. The main takeaways here are that Leslie Howard, Humphrey Bogart's Broadway co-star in the PETRIFIED play, "gave" Bogie his big break by INSISTING that the latter be allowed to reprise his role as gangster "Duke Mantee" in the film (in gratitude for which Bogart named one of his daughters "Leslie"), that Bogie popularized the "remote, haunted look" for American movie gangsters here, and that the box office for PETRIFIED made Warner Bros. studio management realize that in the U.S., crime paid. (For current examples of well-rewarded criminals, think AMER!CAN HUSTLE, THE WOLF OF WALL STREET, and GRAVITY--with Sandra Bullock's serial space station-jacking--as examples from this year's batch of "Best Picture" Also-Rans, not to forget my choice for top pix, DALLAS BUYERS CLUB, or the televised winner, 12 YEARS A SLAVE; even PHILOMENA showed how a nice Irish boy was kidnapped to become a top henchmen for the One Percenter Steal-and-Hoard-the-Wealth Party). Of course, crime does NOT pay for Duke Mantee (maybe he makes his last stand too close to the Mexican border) or the Ship-Jackers in CAPTAIN PHILLIPS (who are NOT pulling off crime IN America). It's tempting to think there's no crime in NEBRASKA (though there probably was some), but the "she" in HER clearly seems to be guilty of feather-bedding on "company time" at best, or plotting genocide at worse. Is THE PETRIFIED FOREST better than any of this year's nine "Best Picture" nominees? The talking heads from MENACE IN THE DESERT do not answer that question (don't forget they were interviewed in 2005, and none of them seem particularly clairvoyant--or female!). IMHO, the only nominated flick from last year which PETRIFIED may top is CAPTAIN PHILLIPS (please, Tom, no more southern accents; THE LADYKILLERS was a flop, and CAPTAIN P.'s previews kept plenty of people away from the box office, as well).

The Making of a Legend

[Michael_Elliott · 8 June 2016]

The Petrified Forest: Menace in the Desert (2005)

*** 1/2 (out of 4)

Another excellent featurette from Warner with this one taking a look at their gangster classic THE PETRIFIED FOREST. Alain Silver, Andrew Sarris, Drew Casper, Eric Lax and Robert Sklar are among the historians on hand to discuss the film as we learn about the play, its transition to the big screen, the fight to get the unknown Humphrey Bogart in the case and the alternate ending that was shot. At just fifteen minutes there's certainly not a lot of running time devoted to the film but you get a great history of the production as well as getting a great idea of how this film helped form what would become the noir genre. The interviews are full of terrific information and there's no doubt that you'll be smarter on the genre by watching this.