Notorious Bette Davis...acting against her will in an unsuitable part, although it's a performance many of her fans relish. Davis is about 5-to-10 years too old for role of Rosa Moline, wife of a well-meaning-but-penniless doctor, residing in a small Wisconsin town with starry-eyed dreams of living in Chicago; Rosa's secret lover, a corporate businessman from the Windy City, keeps reeling her in and throwing her back, while the good doctor takes her antics in stride. Screenwriter Lenore Coffee, working from a book by Stuart Engstrand, can't seem to iron out the character eccentricities or dramatic indignities inherent to the plot (she can't even use the novel's title to her advantage), leaving director King Vidor and his cast pretty much on their own. When Rosa gets sick at the finale, we have no idea why; when the lazy, foul-tempered maid sasses her, we have no clue why Rosa even puts up with her (or how the doctor affords her). Vidor directs Davis gently, casually--and of course she brings everything else from home: poison-coated coyness, lewd lips, flip talk, ridiculously playing with her long brunette wig as if she owned it. So, is this respectable work from Bette Davis, in her last film under contract for Warner Bros.? It is a stunning performance for both right and wrong reasons. True, Bette's Rosa is too heavy and shapeless to actually believe she's a grande dame in her horse-and-buggy town (maybe a blonde wig would've helped?); however, Davis is very good in her scenes with Joseph Cotten, and she doesn't go maniacal with the material. The film has been called camp, unintentionally hilarious--and at times it does strike a wild chord--but I think King Vidor was in on the dirty humor. His outlandishness doesn't qualify the film as a success necessarily, but it is certainly enjoyable. **1/2 from ****
Review of Beyond the Forest
