The Petrified Forest

Gosh, I saw this together with "Key Largo," and it made that wooden project look good.

There's some history here. The 1936 movie was of a play that featured Bogart and Howard. Edward G Robinson was cast in the film for Bogart's role, but he bowed out -- giving Bogart his first chance in movies.

Twelve years later, a reshuffling of the thing was made as "Key Largo" but with Bogart as the good guy and Robinson as the creepy gangster. Bacall was the nice girl. It would be the last joint movie appearance for the two.

But wait! Along comes this, a simplified remake of "Petrified Forest" for TeeVee. Bogart is back as the gangster, and Bacall the nice girl. This would be their actual last joint appearance. Henry Fonda was the good guy this time.

It gives the impression of being a taped live performance, staged as the original play must have been. Bogart is tired, so tired. He may have already known he was dying. The rest of the players are stilted. Clearly, there was scant rehearsal and poor or no direction. So the actors all just run through their lines with the minimum of emotion and total lack of collaboration.

Its a sad, sad disaster. All the intended power of the original play (and some of the movie), those metaphors that played up communism and hit at moneyed privilege, were muted into oblivion because of the red-baiting of the time. The performance is much like the lives of the play. Wasted.

Ted's Evaluation -- 1 of 3: You can find something better to do with this part of your life.