The Petrified Forest
The Petrified Forest (1936) is a film noir with an original screenplay by Delmer Daves and Charles Kenyon. From the play by Robert Sherwood. It stars Humphrey Bogart as Duke Mantee, Bette Davis as Gabrielle Maple, and Leslie Howard as Alan Squier.
This 1930s drama is set in the Petrified Forest area of Arizona's desert. Alan Squier, hitchhiking, wanders into a roadside diner. The diner is run by Jason Maple, his daughter Gaby, and her grandfather, "an old man who almost got shot by Billy the Kid."
Gaby's mother, in love with a young handsome American in his military uniform, married Gaby's father. But eventually she found herself living in the remote desert with a "dull defeated man". She moved back to France when Gaby was a young child. She now sends Gaby poetry and her daughter dreams about visiting Bourges one day to study art. Gaby shows Alan her paintings and reads him a favorite Villon poem.
To Alan Squier, who sees himself as a failed writer, Gaby represents the future and he finds her eagerness and optimism both touching and refreshing. When Duke Mantee "a world famous killer" and his gang appear and hold everyone hostage, Alan eventually makes an arrangement with Duke. With Gaby out of the room, Alan signs over an insurance policy to her and asks Duke to shoot him. "It couldn't make any difference to you Duke. After all, if they catch you they can hang you only once . . ." And to another character in the play he explains: "Living I'm worth nothing to her. Dead-- I can buy her the tallest cathedrals, and golden vineyards, and dancing in the streets."
