Beyond the Forest (1949), King Vidor, with Bette Davis and Joseph Cotten

It has been 10 days since I saw this and am working on the fly here, so there won’t be anything in-depth to say. The gist is that for years I ignored this movie due to its universal critical dismissal; Bette Davis herself mocked it for the rest of her life as did her co-star Joseph Cotten, which I gathered from recently reading his entertaining name-dropping autobiography, Vanity Will Get You Somewhere. Cotten did note the film’s cult status, and shortly thereafter I saw that Ed Gonzalez over at Slant had placed it at numero uno on his top 10 list for 1949. I had to scoff and think him trying to be an uber-hipster provocateur in placing a campy turd in first place in a year filled with so many “real” classics. Oh, how wrong I have been. Beyond the Forest is a full-on masterpiece. Tremendously moving, wickedly funny, operatically majestic, deeply sad and defiantly subversive — a throwback to pre-Code sensibilities in many ways. Bette Davis plays a Mexican girl in a ridiculous black wig and with no Latin accent at all, and pretty soon that’s part of the effectiveness; she’s a fish out of water in more ways than one. Hanging out at the train station, situated at the far edge of the frame going nowhere, or foregrounded against the hellish blast furnace of the mill chugging out choking fire and brimstone toxins and noise day and night, reminding her where she is and that she can never leave. It’s impossible not to feel for her, no matter how wicked she is, or wants to be. Then, when she does get to the big city, Chicago, it’s just more Hell — she can’t wait to get back to the godforsaken podunk logging town with its square dances and square neighbors — all of whom chatter behind her back (and she knows it). She pussy whips poor Joe Cotten, a doctor apparently unable to get it up and who prefers to go hunting with the boys (the sarcasm is not lost in Davis’ remark about his “nice gun”); thus necessitating her running to an old flame. The film makes it pretty clear they’re fucking around and that she’s pregnant with his illegitimate child. It’s remarkable how much of this stuff made it on the screen in ‘49. A comeuppance of course is due, therefore, but here it’s not so much one of divine or earthly punishment, but rather a kind of tragic personal choice. As Davis limps and crawls to the train in the finale, I was fucking crying I tell you. Dammit, I’m doing it now. Grade: A+

Man of the World (1931), Richard Wallace, with William Powell and Carole Lombard

The Carole Lombard "Glamour Collection" 6-film set from Universal (bought used but pristine for an unbeatable $12.98 at Half Price Books) starts off with an obscurity, 1931's Man of the World, directed by the reliable Richard Wallace, who was responsible for one of the decade's best deco comedies, the charming The Young in Heart (1938). Lombard's hair is close cropped in the early 30's manner and she's almost unrecognizable and quite tame as the second billed lead here. This is really a vehicle for William Powell (more than compensatory). He's a debonair American blackmailer aliasing as a novelist in Paris who's (predictably) having second thoughts about his profession when he falls for the niece, Mary, (Lombard) of his most recent, and clueless victim, a butterball butter-and-egg-man American middle-ager (Guy Kibbee) who pretty much makes it clear that he's in Paris not for the culture but for the snatch. It's a nice glimpse of what Kibbee's performance might have been like in the notorious lost 1933 pre-Code comedy, Convention City. Of course, Powell becomes torn between his loyalty to his cronies in crime, including a viper girlfriend, and his budding love for lil Miss Mary. It's predictable until the end, which is surprisingly downbeat; it's impossible to think of any film after 1934 with romantic comedy elements allowing for an ending like this one, and that goes for today's movies. It's a "moral" ending, yet not in the audience-pandering sense, and it seems to have more poetic gravitas than usual. There's a lovely "doubling" narrative effect as the two couples return across the Atlantic. And I'm a sucker for things being scattered over the sea. The movie is full of diverting detail and the kind of style and pacing that I love in '30s film. On the basis of this and The Young in Heart, Richard Wallace seems to have been an exceptional director of actors. In both films the performances are keyed down and natural, and verbal mistakes are allowed to stay in the picture. In all, a well-modulated, if minor and forgettable, '30s entertainment, which of course, is not at all a drawback for me. Grade: C