MovieChat Forums > The Petrified Forest (1936) Discussion > Not a gangster film at all...A great lov...

Not a gangster film at all...A great love story..

posted 12 years ago by sockscats
3 replies | jump to latest

Not complaining, I got this as part of a great Warner brothers classic gangster pack and am glad to own it. The dialogue and acting is first rate. But this is not close to a 1930s style gangster film! Not close!

Gangster films are about the gangsters themselves. They are not part of the story they are the story. Here gangsters force themselves into a story about something completely different.

This is really a love story between Bette Davis and Leslie Howard. Two kindred spirits. Everything that happens around them is secondary to their relationship.

Again I'm not complaining because I love it. Now TCM has a 4 film gangster pack that includes this film.

[–] kenny-164 12 years ago

Petrified Forest was included because it was Bogart's breakout film role, and he did play a gangster. But I agree it is really more a love story between Bette Davis and Leslie Howard.

[–] MisterDenton 11 years ago

I saw that this was coming on TCM, and I had heard good things about it, so I checked it out. But I was surprised to see that it was classified as a crime drama, since all of what I'd heard led me to believe it was a love story. After seeing it, I agree with you, it is fundamentally a love story, albeit one that sort of takes place against the backdrop of a gangster scenario.

[–] giverny98 11 years ago

I got why he was appealing to her; it was absolutely not clear to me why he thought she was all that and a bag of chips.