BEYOND THE FOREST

"What a dump!" Joseph Cotten and Bette Davis

BEYOND THE FOREST (1949). Director: King Vidor. Colorized version.

"You wear that yourself. No dead cat for me -- mink!" -- Rosa to Jenny. 

Rosa Moline (Bette Davis) lives with her doctor husband, Lewis (Joseph Cotten), in the town of Loyalton, Wisconsin. Growing older, Rosa is desperate to find a more exciting life in Chicago with businessman Neil Latimer (David Brian), with whom she is having an affair. However, Rosa's plans are stymied when she runs off to Chicago and discovers that Neil has a new fiancee. But when Neil comes back to Loyalton for a birthday party for his employee Moose (Minor Watson), Rosa realizes that she still has a chance with Neil. But Moose may throw a monkey wrench into her plans ... 

"If I don't get out of this town I'll die!"

Excoriated for years -- even Davis expressed her hatred for the picture -- Beyond the Forest has come in for reassessment and garnered new fans over the years. What the movie has going for it is Davis' vivid performance, solid supporting performances from most of the cast, fast-paced and dramatic direction from King Vidor, an evocative score by Max Steiner that makes adroit use of the song "Chicago" but also has its own compelling themes, and fine cinematography from Robert Burks. While Rosa is not exactly an admirable woman -- she is rather a pathetic figure, in fact -- Davis gets across her utter desperation, especially in a sequence when she stands by her bedroom window with the fiery smelters in the background. "If I don't get out of this town I'll die. If I don't get out of this town I hope I die."

I'm not just any woman -- I'm Rosa Moline!

Ann Doran as a woman with many children has an interesting exchange with Rosa in the post office. Doran expresses sympathy for Rosa, possibly because she herself feels a bit trapped by the small-town life she lives with half a dozen offspring to look after. "This town has been tough on Rosa," she says, to which a neighbor replies, "Rosa's been tough on the town." Vidor peppers the film with other interesting vignettes as the movie unfolds, a murder occurs, along with a decidedly unwanted pregnancy. Rosa's husband is a perfectly nice man, but he can't give Rosa what she needs and is terrible unexciting. You sense if he slapped her around she would respect him more (or kill him). 

Davis with David Brian

Dona Drake (of Kansas City Confidential)   certainly makes an impression as Jenny, the slovenly, funny maid who works for the Molines and exchanges comical barbs with Rosa, reminding her that if she fires her she, Rosa, will have to do the work. Drake also figures in the bravura climax to the picture, when a fever-wracked Rosa makes up her mind to get to the train to Chicago come Hell or high water. There's an operatic intensity to this sequence as Rosa determinedly if on unsteady legs makes her way to the train station where she meets her ultimate fate. 

Verdict: Think what you will of this, Davis saunters through this saucy film noir, a variation of Madame Bovary, with aplomb. ***. 

H. M. PULHAM, ESQ.

Hedy Lamarr and Robert Young

H. M. PULHAM, ESQ. (1941). Director: King Vidor. Based on a novel by John P. Marquand.

Harry Pulham (Robert Young), a successful businessman with a mansion, wife and children, thinks back on his life and remembers the woman he fell in love with but didn't marry twenty years earlier. The oddly named Marvin Myles (Hedy Lamarr) is another copy writer in a firm where the young Harry is employed, and the two gradually fall in love. But Marvin is too independent to want to be a proper Bostonian wife, and Harry eventually marries someone else. Thinking that his marriage to wife Kay (Ruth Hussey) has been a failure, he goes to see Marvin again ...

Paging Marcus Welby? Robert Young

H. M. Pulham, Esq. has several notable features: an excellent performance by Hedy Lamarr [Algiers], which is generally considered the best of her career; a very good performance from Young [Honolulu], who seems superficial and miscast at first but handles subsequent scenes beautifully; a memorable supporting cast which includes Charles Coburn and Fay Holden as Harry's parents, Van Heflin as his buddy, and Hussey as his wife; and a truly lovely ending which explains the whole point and purpose of an enduring marriage between two people. Bronislau Kaper's [Them] score is also of note, as is King Vidor\s direction. In a two-shot with Young and Lamarr she leans back and falls into shadow, forecasting her eventual disappearance from his life.

Verdict: Interesting study of one man's life and loves. ***.

LIGHTNING STRIKES TWICE

LIGHTNING STRIKES TWICE (1951). Director: King Vidor.

"You're not in love with him, you're in love with the smell of murder."

Shelley Carnes (Ruth Roman) is a struggling actress who has somehow saved up enough money to go west for her health. There she encounters Richard Trevelyan (Richard Todd), a man who was acquitted of murdering his unfaithful spouse. Shelley stays at a ranch with Liza (Mercedes McCambridge) a friend who is in love with Richard and who inexplicably wound up on the jury that acquitted him [!], and her weird younger brother, "String" (Darryl Hickman). Shelley is also befriended by Richard's father figure, J. D. (Frank Conroy) and his wife, Myra (Kathryn Givney), as well as their friend, Harvey (Zachary Scott), not to mention the family priest, Father Paul (Rhys Williams). As Shelley begins to fall in love with Richard, she must determine if he is guilty or not -- did one of the aforementioned actually murder his wife? The previous year's Stage Fright also starred Richard Todd as a man mixed up in murder, making Lightning Strikes Twice a significant title for this mostly tiresome retread of sorts, albeit it has a different plot. King Vidor manages to keep things moving, but that's about all, and the suspense is minimal. The actors all acquit themselves nicely, however. The most interesting scene has McCambridge [Giant] going on to Roman about women who, in essence, develop a "thing" for convicts and murderers, even wanting to marry men locked up in jail. The storyline in this actually isn't bad, but there are some jaw-dropping moments of illogic and the whole thing just doesn't hold together. The ads for this film virtually ignored Todd in favor of Roman. Max Steiner's music, which is somewhat recycled, is surprisingly unmemorable. King Vidor also directed the much zestier melodrama Beyond the Forest, which also had a better Steiner score.

Verdict: Half-baked melodrama. **.

SO RED THE ROSE

Randolph Scott and Margaret Sullavan; guess who loves whom

SO RED THE ROSE (1935). Director: King Vidor.

When the Civil War breaks out it deeply affects the Southern Bedford family, run by patriarch, Malcolm (Walter Connolly), who is married to Sally (Janet Beecher), with whom he has two sons (Harry Ellerbe; Dickie Moore) and a daughter, Val (Margaret Sullavan). Val is in love with a distant cousin, Duncan (Randolph Scott), but he seems completely unaware of her feelings whereas George Pendleton (Robert Cummings) has affection for Val. At first Duncan tries to be neutral, which prompts Val to accuse him of cowardice, not exactly the right way to get a romance off to a good start. But then Duncan joins up with the confederacy and off to war he goes ... This is a more or less forgotten Civil War epic made four years before Gone With the Wind, but it's a creditable film, bolstered by fine performances by Sullavan [The Good Fairy], Connolly, and others; Elizabeth Patterson [Lady on a Train] overacts a bit as old Mary Cherry but is also good. On the debit side is a lot of phony glory and the depiction of rebellious slaves as being both lazy and criminal. Johnny Downs [Trocadero] plays a Yankee soldier, a mere boy, who is temporarily hidden by the Bedfords. The film is well-photographed by Victor Milner -- one especially striking shot shows Sullavan running past a tree into the sun.

Verdict: Anything with Sullavan in it is of interest, but this is not a bad movie despite flaws. ***.

DUEL IN THE SUN

Jennifer Jones watches as horse gives Gregory Peck a kiss

DUEL IN THE SUN (1946). Director: King Vidor.

In post-Civil War Texas, the tempestuous "half-breed" Pearl (Jennifer Jones) comes to live with her aunt Laura (Lillian Gish) after the death of her father (Herbert Marshall), who was convicted of murdering her mother. Laura's husband, Senator McCanles (Lionel Barrymore) is an anti-Indian bigot who refuses to accept Pearl, and whose main occupation is keeping the railroad off of his property [leading to a tense confrontation between cowboys and train men halfway through the movie]. McCanles has two sons, the decent Jesse (Joseph Cotten) and the more unsavory Lewt (Gregory Peck). While Pearl falls in love with the kind Jesse, she can't fight her attraction to the sexy "bad boy," Lewt, creating a lot of problems, not to mention a highly perverse climax. Producer David Selznick was hoping for another Gone With the Wind when he made Duel in the Sun, but the film is almost forgotten. The acting in this entertaining "epic" is generally of the second-rate "Hollywood" variety across the board, but on that level it isn't bad. Jones [Love Letters] gives a good performance, although she looks almost ugly in some shots, and a miscast Peck [Mirage] does his best with a role he's really not suited for; neither Peck nor Jones are that good with transitions of mood, which occur frequently in their exchanges. Barrymore, Butterfly McQueen (who is great despite the patronizing attitude held toward her by both the other characters and the filmmakers), Charles Bickford (as one of Pearl's suitors), Otto Kruger, Charles Dingle as a sheriff, and Scott McKay as nasty Syd all make a favorable impression. Some beautiful cinematography from Lee Garmes and others. King Vidor also directed Beyond the Forest and the silent masterpiece The Crowd. Possibly the first of the "sex-westerns," as lust has a lot more to do with it than cow-punching.

Verdict: This could have been a lot better, but it certainly has its moments. ***.

BEYOND THE FOREST

Rosa and the saw mill: "If I don't get out of here I'll die."

BEYOND THE FOREST (1949). Director: King Vidor.

"There's only one person in this town who does anyone a real favor. That's the undertaker -- carries them out." -- Rosa Moline.

"No more dead cat for me! Mink!" -- ditto.

NOTE: Some plot points are given away in this review. Based on a novel by Stuart Engstrand, this vivid melodrama, a kind of poor man's Madame Bovary, has always polarized Davis fans and general movie-goers alike. Davis plays Rosa Moline, a self-absorbed, aging woman in the small town of Loyalton, Wisconsin, which has one industry -- a sawmill constantly issuing smoke and stench -- and one doctor, Rosa's gentle husband, Louis (Joseph Cotten). Bored Rosa, who wants much more out of life than Louis can give her, is having an affair with wealthy businessman Neil Latimer (David Brian of The Damned Don't Cry). Things run hot and cold with Rosa and Latimer for some time, but just when things look perfect Rosa is confronted by Latimer's caretaker, Moose (Minor Watson), who threatens to divulge information to his boss that will utterly ruin things for Rosa. Before she knows it, Rosa is put on trial for murder ...

Hardly anybody, including me, likes Beyond the Forest the first time they see it, perhaps because Davis and the movie seem overblown and slightly grotesque, but the damn thing grows on you and actually has quite a bit going for it. First there's Vidor's direction, which makes the most of Rosa's claustrophobia and frustration, and pulls the viewer along from the very first moment until the highly dramatic climax. Davis has been criticized for supposedly playing a teenager when she was in her forties, but nowhere is it said in the film that Rosa is that young, and one can't assume she is just because the character was younger in the novel. [The characters in the novel "The Postman Always Rings Twice" may have been teenagers or at least very young, but no one has suggested that Turner and Garfield were playing teens in the movie.] Davis comes off like the middle-aged woman whose opportunities are running out just as time is, and who does her best to look and act much younger, and her performance, despite some odd moments perhaps, is vital and effective. Robert Burks' photography makes the most of the bucolic locations and grim situations. Max Steiner's snappy and attractive score was nominated for an Oscar.

Rosa's dilemma is that she fancies herself a non-conformist, different from and superior to the other townspeople, but she hasn't the gifts that would enable her to get away without latching on to some man. The odd thing about Beyond the Forest is that while it's hard to like Rosa, you can't help but find yourself sympathizing with this somewhat sociopathic female who just has to get to Chicago or die [and this has much to do with Davis' performance]. The ending, in which a feverish, dying Rosa literally drags herself inch by inch and step by step to the train station, is not only operatic, but extremely well-handled by Vidor, superbly acted by Davis, and whatever else you think of the film, is just plain good movie-making. The stylized scene when Rosa gets lost in the big city and encounters weird characters is a bit problematic, but sort of works anyway.

Joseph Cotten (Shadow of a Doubt) perhaps makes Louis even more placid than he needs to be. [Some people writing about this movie don't seem to get that it doesn't matter if Louis is "nice" and "pleasant" and forgiving and so on. To Rosa his placidity is deadly.] Dona Drake (Valentino) is excellent as the Native American maid who is so mistreated by Rosa but gives as good as she gets. Minor Watson, a fine actor, played a very different role from Moose, a studio executive, in his next film with Davis, The Star, and is equally convincing in both pictures. Ruth Roman (Invitation) is lovely as Moose's daughter; Davis has a fine moment putting on Roman's mink and looking at herself in the mirror. David Brian is probably the weakest of the cast members, but he's perfectly competent as the rugged Latimer, who's used to getting what he wants, including Rosa. The ubiquitous Ann Doran is one of Loyalton's disapproving [of Rosa] housewives.

Verdict: Love it or hate it, it plays. ***.

STELLA DALLAS

Anne Shirley and Barbara Stanwyck

STELLA DALLAS (1937). Director: King Vidor.

Stella is a young woman in a family of mill hands who wants a better life for herself and gets it when she contrives to meet an executive at the mill, Stephen Dallas (John Boles). But although she lands the guy, Stella is a vulgar and unsympathetic person in many ways, and the two soon separate. However, Stella is redeemed by the sincere love she feels for her daughter, Laurel (Anne Shirley). But as the girl grows and bonds with her father and the new lady in his life, the widow Helen Morrison (Barbara O'Neil), Stella comes to realize that her rather declasse status may do her daughter more harm than good. Some aspects of Stella Dallas have to be taken with a grain of salt. It's one of those movies where people are terrible to other people that they love because they think they need "to be cruel to be kind" [along the lines of the guy who discovers he's going to be permanently crippled telling the woman who adores him that he hates her so she can be "free."] Once you accept that somewhat dated convention, it is easy to focus on the film's major strengths, which include Stanwyck's utterly superb performance [one of her finest in a career of excellent performances], as well as sterling work by Shirley, John Boles, boisterous Alan Hale as a friend of Stella's, O'Neill, Ann Shoemaker, Marjorie Main, and others. [Even Olin  Howlin/Howland from The Blob --years in his future -- shows up!] One of the best scenes is a very moving encounter between Stella and Helen, and the ending -- if slightly contrived and "dramatic" -- is lovely and poignant. Hattie McDaniel, Jimmy Butler, and Tim Holt also have small roles. All this and an excellent score by Alfred Newman as well.

Verdict: Stanwyck and a general air of classiness lift this out of the soap opera level, but it's definitely a classic tearjerker. ****.

THE PATSY (1929)

THE PATSY (1928). Director: King Vidor.

Pat Harrington (Marion Davies) lives with her loving father (Dell Henderson) and a mother (Marie Dressler), who clearly favors her snotty sister, Grace (Jane Winton) over her. To make matters worse, Pat has an unrequited longing for Tony (Orville Caldwell), her sister's boyfriend, although Grace apparently prefers the company of that sexy scalawag Billy (Lawrence Gray). This reasonably entertaining comedy-drama is in no way in the league of Vidor's classic silent The Crowd, but the actors are all appealing. One wishes the film had a little more depth, and there are tiresome detours (such as Pat coming out with allegedly witty sayings in an attempt to develop a "personality"). The new original score by Vivek Maddala adds a lot to the picture, however. Davies is quite good and it's always a pleasure to see Dressler, here in a mostly unsympathetic role.

Verdict: Interesting if unspectacular silent. **1/2.

CYNARA

CYNARA (1932). Director: King Vidor.

"I have been faithful to thee, Cynara, in my fashion."

Jim Warlock (Ronald Colman) is happily married to Clemency (Kay Francis, pictured), who is out of town traveling with her sister, when he meets a pretty young woman, Doris (Phyllis Barry), in a cafe. The two drift into an affair, which eventually results in scandal and tragedy. While this is a slight film, it boasts good performances, especially from Barry and Colman and the always-wonderful Henry Stephenson as Jim's friend, John. Normally the unfaithful spouse is not too sympathetic, but Colman actually manages to be quite moving, and the ending is effective. What the film needs is another half hour of running time and deeper characterizations.

According to Lawrence J. Quirk in The Films of Ronald Colman, Colman was nervous about playing an adulterer, and while the film got good reviews, Colman's fans did not care for him in such a part. Quirk also writes that "it was a novel idea in 1932 that occasional infidelity in a marriage could be countenanced and forgiven if all other aspects of the union were favorable."

Verdict: Minor but definitely has its moments. **1/2.

THE MEN WHO MADE THE MOVIES: KING VIDOR

THE MEN WHO MADE THE MOVIES: KING VIDOR. TCM. 2001.

This is a profile of the great director and his films; there isn't much about his personal life, which might have enriched an already fascinating program. However, this is still a solid look at the man behind the helm of such films as The Crowd, The Big Parade, The Champ (with its moving performance by Jackie Cooper); Our Daily Bread, which Vidor financed himself when MGM found the subject matter too unglamourous; Show People (with Marion Davies); The Citadel; all the sepia sequences in The Wizard of Oz; Solomon and Sheba with its great "mirror" battle scene; and The Fountainhead with Cooper and Neal. Vidor discusses the tragic life of James Murray who starred in The Crowd, and even talks a bit about the much-maligned Beyond the Forest, which doesn't deserve the scorn heaped upon it if for no other reason than Vidor directed it and his direction is as vivid as ever. He even talks about working with David Selznick on Duel in the Sun (Vidor was co-director) which started out as a small, unusual western and ballooned into an epic that Selznick hoped would rival Gone With the Wind.

Verdict: Quite entertaining and informative. ***.

THE CITADEL

THE CITADEL. (1938) Director: King Vidor.

A doctor tries to do the noble, idealistic thing and help his patients -- poor coal miners who have developed tuberculosis from dust in the mines, among others -- but when his efforts are angrily rejected (to put it mildly) he eventually settles for ministering to wealthy, neurotic hypochondriacs until a tragedy sets him back on course. A glossy, professional, well-acted, workmanlike effort that gets across the basic ideas of the original novel by A.J. Cronin, but to 21st century eyes presents a somewhat artificial elucidation of its theme. It ends on a rather abrupt note after an excellent closing speech by Donat. King Vidor's direction is solid, Donat is strong, Russell, fortunately, more subdued than usual -- it's all just a little pat and superficial. Still, there are some very well-handled scenes, such as when Donat saves a baby's life, and breezily and dismissively chit chats with a kindly restaurant owner who is trying desperately to interest him in the illness of her beloved daughter.

Verdict: Not great but not without interest. **1/2.