Bogart’s First Movie

Here we go…

Maybe it’s hindsight talking, but some actors or actresses jump off the screen at us, even in their very early roles. While their parts might be small, we can see they’re going to have a big future. One of these is Humphrey Bogart, whose first film was 1936’s The Petrified Forest, which brought Robert Sherwood’s successful play of the same name to the screen.

The movie opens with Alan Squier (Leslie Howard) trudging along an Arizona desert road. Up ahead is Black Mesa, a tiny town that plays host to Gramps Maple’s Black Mesa Bar-B-Q diner, where travelers are warned that it’s their last chance to buy gas before crossing the desert and the day’s special is always a burger with vegetables on the side.

Not much happens at the diner, of course, except for the Maples taking care of the various travelers who pass through. Gramps (Charley Grapewin) sits around kibitzing with his fellow old timers while Jason (Porter Hall) is constantly off with his fellow World War One vets preparing to fight a battle they’re sure will happen some day. In between customers Gabrielle (Bette Davis) spends her days reading French poetry, painting and fending off Boze (Dick Foran), the burly and highly amorous football player and general handyman around the gas station.

Gaby’s mother is French. She and Jason met during the First World War, got married, came to Jason’s Arizona home, but soon after Gaby was born she left and went back to France, where she lives her own life and sends Gaby books and postcards. Gaby hates the desert and longs to join her mom. As soon as her grandpa dies, Gaby and Jason are going to sell the diner and Gaby will be off to France.

Naturally, Gaby finds Alan intriguing, especially once he washes off the grime from the road and puts on his nice tweeds. She’s even more smitten when he turns out to be a writer who encourages her in her painting and wants to hear some of the French poetry Boze is allergic to. Gaby wants Alan to show her around France (he’s been there), but since he doesn’t like retracing his steps she sends him off with a silver dollar and a ride to Phoenix with a rich couple, the Chisolms (Paul Harvey and Genevieve Tobin) and their chauffer, Joseph (John Alexander).

It all might seem like the end of things, but a ruthless gang leader, Duke Mantee (Humphrey Bogart) is on the lam with his gang, and he’s headed in the direction of the Bar-B-Q Diner. First, though, he’s got to steal the Chisolms’ towncar and leave them on the side of the road with Alan and Joseph.

Alan makes a beeline for the diner, but Duke isn’t far behind, and the Chisolms will show up sooner or later with Joseph. Jason is away at another meeting, but Gramps is there and thrilled to meet a real-life killer because so many desert-dwellers have gotten too soft and contented. Boze is out for a fight, but Gaby is strangely calm, bringing the hoodlums burgers and various alcoholic beverages. She is, however, thrilled to see Alan again.

Duke is ruthless, wise-cracking, and intense, but even he can’t do much while a sandstorm raises outside, especially since he knows the authorities will close in on him sooner rather than later. He’s got nothing to lose but his freedom and his life. The characters have a lot of time to sit around and lay stuff bare, plus make decisions about what’s going to happen next. Some see themselves as disposable and others cling to life with everything they’ve got. Still others, namely Alan Squier, face off with Duke and call his bluff because he also knows he has nothing to lose.

The Petrified Forest is the kind of film that begs to be analyzed from various angles, and maybe we’ll do that someday, but since we’re visiting Broadway this weekend we’re going to look at some of the history of the show, namely Bogart’s experience, which opened at the Broadhurst Theatre on January 7, 1935 and closed on June 29, 1935.

Right from the get-go there seemed to be those who sensed Bogart was headed for big things. His actor bio in Playbill read:

Humphrey Bogart began his career in a somewhat fortuitous fashion. He was the company manager of a play called “The Ruined Lady,” in which Grace George was appearing, and one night he found himself an actor when he replaced thel leading man.

Naturally, when Hollywood came calling, Bogart and his costar, Leslie Howard went out to recreate their roles alongside Bette Davis. Amazingly enough, though, Edward G. Robinson was Warner’s first choice for Duke Mantee, and it was only at the insistence of Leslie Howard that Bogie was able to recreate his stage role. Bogart played the role like a man on borrowed time, which Mantee really was.

The Petrified Forest stuck pretty closely to its source material, with the bulk of the action taking place in the dining room of the Maple auto stop, with each character pondering their circumstances. The character of Duke Mantee was based on gangster John Dillinger, whose life was also an exercise in doomed evasiveness.

Since the film and play came smack in the middle of the 1930s when gangsters were box office favorites, it was a sure hit on both Broadway and Hollywood. Audiences reacted in much the same way to the filmed version of The Petrified Forest as they had on Broadway, inhaling when Bogart came on, because his Duke Mantee really was frightening. Variety said, “Bogart’s menace leaves nothing wanting.” PhotoPlay called the film “infinitely superior.”

The Petrified Forest ranked number forty-nine in 1936 box office returns, bringing in a respectable $1.9M in domestic box office returns, and Bogart was signed to a five year contract.

It was probably a bittersweet time in Bogie’s life. He was carrying a lot of baggage at the time, as his dad had recently died and left a $10,000 debt, one of his sisters had died of alcoholism, and the other was hospitalized with mental illness. It didn’t help that Bogart had to start as a bottom-tier actor, but at least he got to start, and his debut was pretty impressive. Still, he had about six years of bottom-tier roles ahead before he became the lead actor we all know him as.

The 1936 film wasn’t his last turn as Duke Mantee, either. In 1955, Bogart starred in an abbreviated TV version of The Petrified Forest alongside wife Lauren Bacall as Gabrielle and Henry Fonda as Alan Squier. It must have felt extremely melancholy to play the role again, as Bogart had aged twenty years since his debut, and this time he was living on borrowed time in the real sense: Two years later, he would die of throat cancer.

Some players have “star” written all over them, and Bogart’s turn in The Petrified Forest left no doubt that his days as an unknown were numbered.

For more Broadway, please click here. Thanks for reading, all, and see you all tomorrow for the wrapup post…

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The Petrified Forest is available on DVD and Blu-ray from Amazon. The original play is available here.

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Bibliography

Santas, Constantine. The Essential Humphrey Bogart. Lanham, Maryland: Rowan & Littlefield Publishers, 2016.