Beyond The Forest drags around a reputation as one of the all-time stinkers, a reputation that's far from deserved but not hard to understand. This is the movie whose name Martha, in Edward Albee's play Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf, can't remember after she quotes the emblematic line `What a dump.' (Thrown away by Bette Davis, the line got parodied as high camp by Elizabeth Taylor in the play's screen version.) It also fell at a time when Davis' best work was thought to be well behind her, and when she was labeled `difficult,' a year before All About Eve gave her career a booster shot.
And, to be fair, there are aspects of the movie itself, a lurid and overwrought drama, that account for some of the scorn that's been heaped upon it. Married to impoverished physician Joseph Cotton in a grim Wisconsin factory town, Davis (as Rosa Moline) chafes against the boredom of her life and craves romance, adventure, big-city life as exemplified by Chicago, just a short train-ride away. That's where big-shot David Brian lives the high life but now and then visits a hunting lodge in the woods where he caught Davis' eye. She's just another notch on his bedpost but she's convinced herself he'll hand her the life of her fantasies. The plot cooks up a witch's brew of adultery, abortion and murder. But director King Vidor does well with the overripe material, which smacks of midcentury `regional' literature. Though Davis' long black wig is a sight for sore eyes, it's entirely in character for the slutty Rosa with longings above her breeding. When she finally travels to the Big Town, Vidor turns it into a tense yet poignant cinematic vignette.
Admittedly, there are weaknesses: the big murder trial seems irrelevant even in this far-fetched plot, and both Cotton and Brian get elbowed offscreen by the volcanic Davis. But Beyond the Forest's operatic ending more than compensates for the movie's faults. Greasy-faced and straggle-haired, guzzling pitchers of water and sweating like a stuck pig, Davis, dying and delirious from peritonitis (that botched operation), rouses herself for one last trip to Chicago. Kicking away her native American maid, she slaps on her makeup and finery and staggers down to the railroad tracks where the approaching train whistles its siren song of `Chicago, Chicago.' Alas, poor Rosa Moline dies like a dog, face down in the mud, as it passes her by. It's an eye-popping, go-for-broke performance, and maybe only Davis at this desperate juncture in her stardom could have brought off this Liebestod.
And, to be fair, there are aspects of the movie itself, a lurid and overwrought drama, that account for some of the scorn that's been heaped upon it. Married to impoverished physician Joseph Cotton in a grim Wisconsin factory town, Davis (as Rosa Moline) chafes against the boredom of her life and craves romance, adventure, big-city life as exemplified by Chicago, just a short train-ride away. That's where big-shot David Brian lives the high life but now and then visits a hunting lodge in the woods where he caught Davis' eye. She's just another notch on his bedpost but she's convinced herself he'll hand her the life of her fantasies. The plot cooks up a witch's brew of adultery, abortion and murder. But director King Vidor does well with the overripe material, which smacks of midcentury `regional' literature. Though Davis' long black wig is a sight for sore eyes, it's entirely in character for the slutty Rosa with longings above her breeding. When she finally travels to the Big Town, Vidor turns it into a tense yet poignant cinematic vignette.
Admittedly, there are weaknesses: the big murder trial seems irrelevant even in this far-fetched plot, and both Cotton and Brian get elbowed offscreen by the volcanic Davis. But Beyond the Forest's operatic ending more than compensates for the movie's faults. Greasy-faced and straggle-haired, guzzling pitchers of water and sweating like a stuck pig, Davis, dying and delirious from peritonitis (that botched operation), rouses herself for one last trip to Chicago. Kicking away her native American maid, she slaps on her makeup and finery and staggers down to the railroad tracks where the approaching train whistles its siren song of `Chicago, Chicago.' Alas, poor Rosa Moline dies like a dog, face down in the mud, as it passes her by. It's an eye-popping, go-for-broke performance, and maybe only Davis at this desperate juncture in her stardom could have brought off this Liebestod.