Beyond The Forest (1949) DVD

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$9.99

SKU:

J10022022706

Rating:

Beyond The Forest (1949)

Director
- King Vidor
Writers
- Lenore J. Coffee
- Stuart Engstrand(novel)
Stars
- Bette Davis
- Joseph Cotten
- David Brian
"What a dump!" That's the classic line delivered by Bette Davis at the halfway point of Beyond the Forest, her final Warner Bros. effort of the 1940s. Some Davis devotees feel as though this vituperative utterance is the high point of an otherwise turgid melodrama; others consider the line a succinct assessment of the entire film. Based on a best-selling novel by Stuart Engstrand, the film stars Davis as Rosa Moline, a small-town girl with big-city ambitions. Trapped in a dull marriage to just-getting-by lawyer Lewis Moline (Joseph Cotten), Rosa plots and plans to sexually entrap millionaire industrialist Neil Latimer (David Brian). That Rosa's scheme is doomed from the start is telegraphed at every juncture by Max Steiner's sledgehammer musical score (few will ever want to hear the song "Chicago" again after this). Hampered by the censorship standards of the era, the film is prevented from being as frank as the novel; in one scene, for example, Rosa is obviously visiting an abortionist, but the sign on the door reads "Psychiatrist." A standard entry in most film historians' "Worst Movies" lists (even Davis herself hated it), Beyond the Forest is rather entertaining in its own schlocky fashion.

what a dump! (and what a great bad film)

Posted by Philip Shultz on Feb 10th 2023

Bette Davis, in the last film under her Warner Brothers contract, plays a role very unsuited to her at this point in her career. She only agreed to complete this film, if Warner Brothers let her out of her contract, which began in 1932. (She always said that Virginia Mayo, also under contract to Warner Brothers at this time, would have been great in the part.) Bette was much to old at the time for this role, and she struts around in off the shoulder blouses, and a black fright wig, and utters her immortal line, "What A Dump". Again, this film is so bad, that it's good; very campy, and a must for Davis fans, a precursor to her grotesque characterizations that were so much a part of her career, starting in the 1960's. Also mentioned should be Dona Drake, a Paramount contract player in musicals of the 1940's. Here, she gives her all as Davis' housekeeper, playing her role as if she expected to be nominated for a supporting Oscar.