Bette Davis as Rosa Moline

BEYOND THE FOREST 1949lecinemadreams.blogspot.com /2016/10/beyond-forest-1949.html

Rosa Moline is discontented and doesn’t care who knows it. Rosa (Bette Davis) is the bored and restless wife ofdull-but-decent general practitioner Lewis Moline (Joseph Cotton), the only doctor in the small town of Loyalton,Wisconsin. Loyalton is a lumbering town, both literally and figuratively, whose local sawmill blasts heat and spewssawdust ceaselessly, fueling Rosa’s fevered certainty that she is suffocating and being buried alive.But if the local sawmill is the arrhythmic heartbeat of Loyalton, the only thing that can get Rosa’s pulse racing iswhen the train that goes to and from Chicago pulls into the station twice daily. A train whose chugging steam enginebeckons (per the film’s portentous narration): “Come, Rosa. Come away before it’s too late. Chicago…Chicago…Chicago….”

Fans of the overripe cinema of director KingVidor (Duel in the Sun, The Fountainhead,Ruby Gentry) and Edward Albee’s Who’sAfraid of Virginia Woolf? will recognizeBeyond the Forest as the film whose titleGeorge is stumped to recall when Marthamimics Bette Davis and utters the oft-parodied line “What a dump!” But for that bitof theatrical immortality bestowed upon thishotly contested post-war melodrama(plagued by censorship interference, it's afilm Davis did only under protest, contributingto the end of her 18 years with Warner Bros)it’s unlikely many others could recall Beyondthe Forest, either; a lesser entry in the BetteDavis canon that has neverthelessdeveloped a devoted cult (and camp)following over the years.

1/15

Joseph Cotten as Lewis Moline

David Brian as Neil Latimer

Joining the ranks of the many discontented housewives of great literature: Ibsen’s Hedda Gabler, Flaubert’s EmmaBovary, Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina, Carol Burnett’s Eunice Higgins…Rosa Moline is a woman who longs for more outof life. Feeling constrained and stifled bymarriage and the conventional morality ofsmall town life, Rosa not only wants more,but feels she deserves more. Though aLoyalton native, Rosa has always clung tothe idea that she is somehow “different” fromthe other women in town; a grade above theordinary and therefore meant for betterthings.Which is why, rather than simply escapingLoyalton on her own and paving anindependent path for herself in the big city—“What as…a telephone girl, astenographer, waitress?”— Rosa sticksaround, thumbing her nose at the low-rentaspirations of the townswomen ("Youcertainly go in for mass production, don'tyou?" she remarks to a local mom and herbrood) and settling for a life of not-so-quietdesperation as a doctor’s wife in the town’sfinest house (said aforementioned dump). A life of pitiful attempts at cultivating second-hand class (“I wanted venetian blinds...all thehouses in magazines have venetian blinds!”),and of having her middle-class pretensionsconsistently deflated by the knowinginsolence of her Native-Americanhousekeeper.

But Rosa is a woman with a dream. Well, tobe honest, more like a scheme. Not one tocontent herself with merely the best thatLoyalton has to offer, Rosa sets her sights onwealthy Chicago businessman Neil Latimer,the owner of a nearby hunting lodgeoverseen by family friend Moose Lawson.After carrying on a torrid, year-long love affairwith the bachelor industrialist practically under her husband’s saintly, overworked nose, Rosa plans on getting Neilto marry her and whisk her away with him to Chicago. Sure, she's already married, but what’s a little detail like thatwhen a woman has a destiny to fulfill. And make no mistake, Rosa is a woman who wants the good life, hasconvinced herself she deserves the good life, and is so determined to acquire the good life for herself, she’s willingto do just about anything and everything to make sure that happens.Like many a film noir, Beyond the Forest is a tale told in flashback. When me first meet Rosa she is on trial forshooting a man, the who and why melodramatically divulged once the film proper kicks in and takes us back fivemonths prior. Here, Rosa is revealed to be a crack shot with a lousy disposition (after using her rifle to take out apoor, defenseless porcupine minding its own business, her only explanation is "I don't like porkies...they irritateme."); the film conveniently supplying three likely targets for her trigger-happy temperament.There's her goody-goody husband who is too nice to press his clients into paying their bills (those ankle-strap

2/15

Ruth Roman as Carol Lawson

sandals aren't going to pay for themselves, y'know). Next, there's Moose, the town souse and Lewis' fishing buddy.Moose's only offense is he, like the character of Leroy in The Bad Seed, is one of the few people in town who seesright through Rosa. Their mutual antipathy (Moose- "You're something for the birds, Rosa. Something for the birds."Rosa - "You're something to make the corn grow tall!") isn't at all helped by the fact that Moose has a well-turned-outdaughter (Ruth Roman) who's everything Rosa would like to be.Lastly, there's rolling-in-dough Neil K. Latimer. Although he and Rosa share a passionate physical attraction andRosa sees him more as a ticket out of purgatory than the love of her life; the monkey wrench in the works (andprobable bullet to the body) is Rosa's nagging fear that he just doesn't think she's good enough for him.

3/15

Minor Watson as Moose Lawson

4/15

Dona Drake as Jenny

5/15

"What a dump!"Brandishing an emery board, that international symbol of the self-absorbed and aloof, Bette Davis utters what The American Film Institute voted

#62 in its roster of 100 Most Memorable Movie Quotes

Jenny - "Do you want that Chicken a la King business served on toast?"Rosa - "Well I showed you the picture in the magazine, didn't I?"

Jenny - "How can I see if there's toast under all that goo?"

6/15

When Velma Takes The Stand

7/15

"If I don't get out of here I'll die. If I don't get out of here I hope I die!"

I can't vouch for how 1949 audiences reacted to Beyond the Forest (although we can all agree it wasn't particularlyfavorable), but I remember getting a huge kick out of watching Davis—Vampira wigged, low necklined, lumpy-figured, clomping about in Joan Crawford pumps and spitting out her campy dialogue in her best self-parodying,Bette Davis drag queen impersonation—while trying to guess which one of these male clay pigeons would irritateher to the point of having to mete out a little "porcupine justice."

WHAT I LOVE ABOUT THIS FILMThere’s no getting past the fact that Beyondthe Forest’s single main attraction for me isthe staggeringly miscast Bette Davis.Looking awkward, uncomfortable and unableto get even a remotely credible foothold onthe type of bad-to-the-bone vexed vixenGloria Grahame could play in her sleep;Davis (whom director King Vidor seemedintent on molding into a bad copy of JenniferJones' Dueling in the Sun hotpot in apeasant blouse) relies instead on amannered (read: ludicrous) vamp posturingand broad-as-a-barn emoting.And while I can fully understand why shecampaigned enthusiastically to be replacedby Virginia Mayo in the part—"She's good atthese sorts of roles!" (which sounds like agenerous compliment until you stop to think about it)—I'm glad jack Warner held her to it, because Davis, in all hersublime awfulness, is the best thing in the film.

Beyond the Forest treads such familiar noir ground that even upon first viewing, I felt as though I’d seen it before.Certainly my having already encountered Joseph Cotten as Marilyn Monroe's nice-guy cuckold in Niagara (1953)and David Brian as Joan Crawford's hankered-after symbol of well-heeled respectability in Flamingo Road (1949)contributed to the déjà vu. Beyond the Forest's allusions to adultery, abortion, miscarriage, sexual dissatisfaction and(gasp!) the lead character’s blatant disdain for all the things postwar women were supposed to want, must havebeen pretty heady stuff back in the ‘40s, but watching it now only makes me aware of how—outside of a few stylistic

8/15

Rosa goes camping (with a capital CAMP)Moose- "The trouble with you, Lew, is you don't get up here often enough."

Rosa - "He doesn't do ANYTHING enough!"

touches in the cinematography and use of music—it’s all been done before and to better effect. The sole exception,thus supplying the film’s only spark of energy and interest, is the Bette Davis’ completely off the rails performance.

PERFORMANCESAs a fan of Patty Duke's Neely O'Hara and Faye Dunaway's Joan Crawford, I obviously have no real problem withunrestrained, bordering-absurd performances. When they enhance (rather than derail) a production, they shine likebeacons of inadvertent genius. But in accessing the "Carol Burnett Show parody" level of Bette Davis's unsubtletake on the character of Rosa Moline inBeyond the Forest (which bears more than apassing resemblance to a supposed-to-be-awful screen test performance Davis gives in1953's The Star), it doesn't seem fair to layall the blame at the actress's ankle-strappedfeet.For example, I'm not sure who came up withDavis' almost goth girl appearance here, butyou'd have to look to Joan Crawford's garishgetup in Strait-Jacket (1964) to find acampier image of toxic sexuality. Anotherproblem is Davis' age. Although only 40,Davis looks at least five years older, theresultant effect being that Rosa's desire tohightail it out of Loyalton comes off as half-hearted at best, at worst, an epic case offoot-dragging.

She's not given much help by a screenplay(adapted from Stuart Engstrand's 1945 novelby Lenore J. Coffee, Warners' only womanscreenwriter) which, perhaps in an effort toundercut audience sympathy andidentification (who wouldn't want to get out ofthat hick town?), makes Rosa into an almostmisogynist caricature of self-interest and greed. Though one can imagine any number of good reasons why a vitalwoman would feel stifled by small town life, the film sees fit to reduce all Rosa's desires to the material andsuperficial. The only time the movie comes close to granting her recognizably human emotions is when (tellingly) herspirit is broken by a particularly humiliating visit to Chicago. Otherwise she's depicted as little more than an overageSadie Thompson spewing forth an unbroken stream of harsh invectives at anyone unfortunate enough to cross herpath.

THE STUFF OF FANTASYI don't happen to find Beyond the Forest to be particularly persuasive as drama, but as arch melodrama, it can't bebeat. Vidor ratchets up the excess to the point that everything about it feels satirical, even when it's in deadlyearnest. The natural performances of the rest of the cast, Joseph Cotten especially, grounds the film just enough toprovide Davis' over-the-moon emoting with a solid springboard from which to soar.Case in point: my favorite sequence - Rosa's trip to Chicago. Set up as the film's dramatic centerpiece and givenample buildup by having the 1922 Fred Fisher song "Chicago (That Toddlin' Town)" chime in on the soundtrackevery time Rosa gets that faraway look in her eyes; the sequence instead plays out like an early draft of Neil Simon'sThe Out of Towners .

9/15

Rosa, literally trapped in a domestic cage

"Rosa...moving easily, freely, every man's admiring eye upon her."

Rosa's escape to Chicago city is a comedy of errors which really couldn’t go much worse. List of mishaps:She can’t get through to her lover on thephone.She's kept waiting in his offices for hours.He finally calls but she's so lost in thought("I'm Rosa Moline!") she misses it.They meet up and he greets her withwonderful news: he's getting married!She gets kicked out of a bar for soliciting.She gets propositioned by a slob in themiddle of a monsoon.In succession: she's heckled by amadwoman, startled by a drunk, terrorizedby a newsboy.Has to chase down a cab in her ankle straps. THE STUFF OF DREAMSI grew up in a house with four sisters, so Ican attest to the fact that the femme fatalesof '40s film noir and the sadder-but-wiserfallen women of the '40s "woman's picture"were every bit the vicarious thrill for them asI found to be those movies where geeky guyslike Tom Ewell and Tommy Noonan woundup with incredible women like JayneMansfield and Marilyn Monroe.These films were the kind of wish-fulfillmentfantasies that gave wings to our adolescentids (in MY fantasies, Monroe & Mansfieldwere replaced by Frank Converse or SteveMcQueen). But unlike the myriad male-centric films devised to reassureunexceptional men that the world actuallyfavored them; the women in the film noirsand women's pictures always paid a price fortheir freedom. A woman's desire to exertpower over her fate was rarely, if ever,depicted as a healthy drive, but ratherassociated with some form of pathology or moral lack. The fun we had watching the "bad girls" (who always dressedbetter, had the best lines, and moved the plot forward) was always undercut by the knowledge that no matter howmuch havoc was wreaked, before fade-out, order in the form of gender-role normalcy would be restored to theuniverse.

10/15

Pregnant, hair restrained, body covered, and (God forbid) wearing flat shoes; Rosa, now convinced of her ordinariness, is at last brought low. Isthis return to traditional gender roles what people wanted from women in the postwar years?

11/15

All Dressed Up With Nowhere To GoFantasies vs Murphy's Law as Rosa's dream of Chicago turns into a nightmare

No one ever had as miserable a time looking for a good time as Rosa Moline

12/15

Rosa, channeling her inner fabulousness

Beyond the Forest is too overwrought for me to take seriously, but if well-crafted camp can be considered alegitimate genre (and since we all know how difficult it is to pull off, maybe it should be) it's one of the best of its kind.A film that can be enjoyed on many levels (I've read of many Bette Davis fans who actually think it's one of her betterperformances), what I love about it is that the essentially camp drag queen sensibility that makes Davis' RosaMoline such a hoot of a to watch, is matched scene-for-scene with an unconsciously gay sensibility that makesRosa's plight relatable and sympathetic.Gay men of my generation traditionally grewup in towns and environments where they felt"different" and out of step with others. Unableto relate to peers who only wanted to getmarried and start a family, a commonreaction and survival tactic was to embracethat which made them not fit in. To take prideand revel in one's uniqueness, and to learn(like Rosa) to express oneself by looking,dressing, and behaving in ways moreattuned to how one saw oneself—not withhow society said you ought to be.

My partner grew up in a small town and tellsme that in spite of having a very happychildhood devoid of bullying or harassment,he never for one moment entertained thethought of remaining there once he came ofage. The quiet sameness of the townfostering in him an appetite for big city life; the unspoken dominance of conformity assuring him that he could nevertruly be himself there. The parallels to be found in the early lives of many gay men (I hope it's only the early lives)and Rosa Moline's bristling at the life she's supposed to want as a woman in a small town, is, I believe, anintractable part of where Beyond the Forest's gay cult appreciation is rooted.

13/15

It's a fact of life that we invariably have to leave one place and relocate to another in order to find ourselves anddiscover what it is we really want. Happily, for most of us the road to self-actualization doesn't involve firearms.

BONUS MATERIAL

As many have noted, the readers who leave comments on this blog tend to be so knowledgeable about film they'remore like contributors. Blogger Rick Gould brought my attention to the baggy, unflattering suit Rosa wears toChicago. Since its difficult to imagine seasoned costume designer Edith Head just "happened" to have dropped theball with Davis's problematic figure, my mind went to the 1988 book King Vidor: American in which authors RaymondDurgnat & Scott Simon suggest that Rosa's ill-fitting handmade suit was perhaps intended to convey Rosa's patheticattempt at copying the sleeker, more sophisticated suit worn by Moose's daughter Carol.In the same book the authors reference another point Rick brings up, the similarity in appearance of Rosa and hermaid Jenny. Their take is that Jenny & Carol both possess more freedom than Rosa sees herself as having, and thatits telling how she adopts the clothing style of these women in two unsuccessful attempts to escape from her life.

Hard as it is to believe, Bette Davis doesn't give Beyond The Forest's worst performance. That dubious honor goesto actress Dona Drake. Admittedly it can't be easy doing anything under that dreadful fright wig and three pounds ofMax Factor's Dark Egyptian #5, but as Rosa's just-not-into-it maid, Drake gives (to quote The New York Times): "Afine high-school performance."

14/15

The Lady DancesDona Drake as Rita Rio in the 1936 Eddie Cantor feature Strike Me Pink

She's rather adorable in this musical number which fans of Yellow Submarine (1968) will recognize as having segments rotoscoped for "Lucy inthe Sky With Diamonds".

Watch it on YouTube HERE

Drake's offscreen acting must have been considerably more convincing, for the lovely African-American actress/singer/dancer/bandleader spent her entire career passing as Mexican-American. Going byseveral different names, among them Rita Rio and Rita Novello, Drake was wed to famed costume designer WilliamTravilla (Valley of the Dolls, Marilyn Monroe) in what is rumored to be an arranged marriage (studio guarding herethnicity, his bi/homosexuality). She appeared in many films, usually as an "exotic."You can read more about Drake's life and history:Travilla's LegacyLittle Known Black History

Copyright © Ken Anderson

15/15