BEYOND THE FOREST (1949)

A career-threatening flop in its day (Bette Davis fought her way out of a long-term Warners contract before it opened); a ‘60s ‘Camp’ Classic when an older Davis became something of a gay icon (it supplied Edward Albee with Martha’s ‘What a dump’ line in WHO’S AFRAID OF VIRGINIA WOOLF); more recently earning grudging admiration for just how far it pushes the envelop; Davis herself nailed the problem noting that at 40 she was twice the age her character should have been and that the small-town doctor/husband she’s so desperate to run away from needed pug-ugly Eugene Palette, not gentlemanly Joseph Cotten.  Right as far as it goes, assuming you’re aiming for the conventional melodrama in Leonore Coffee’s MidWest MADAME BOVARY script*.  Only director King Vidor wasn’t shooting for conventional but jonesing for Fever Dream.  So too his other 1949 film, Ayn Rand’s slightly bonkers THE FOUNTAINHEAD.  And of the two, this one gets closer to the mark possibly because Rand’s refusal to bend on her many eruptions of didactic/philosophic dialog put a mine field of dramatic obstacles in the actor’s path.  Here, with Davis in a fright wig of long black tresses (and yet how fashionable she looks when it’s pulled back!), the film can’t account for the infatuation of Doc Cotten or David Brian’s Chicago-based millionaire lover.  No matter, there’s subconscious dream logic to the visual texture, especially in the magnificent final set piece as cinematographer Robert Burks’ red-filtered b&w lensing accompanies Davis on her final mile as she attempts to catch that midnight train to Chicago.  If only rest of the film had more than fleeting grace notes of contact to match this apotheosis.

DOUBLE-BILL/LINK: *Also from 1949, Vincente Minnelli’s take on MADAME BOVARY (the original Flaubert, or something like it) with Jennifer Jones, Van Heflin & Louis Jourdan in the Davis, Cotten, Brian spots.  (It’s apotheosis comes early in a high society waltz.)  https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2016/04/madame-bovary-1949.html  OR: King Vidor reprising themes & visual compulsions in RUBY GENTRY/’52 with Jennifer Jones and Charlton Heston.  https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2011/04/ruby-gentry-1952.html

ATTENTION MUST BE PAID: Judging by our poster, Italians intuitively understood this strange film better than Hollywood who simply played up the bad, bad Bette angle.