Beyond the Forest
| Beyond the Forest | |
|---|---|
 Theatrical release poster |
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| Directed by | King Vidor |
| Produced by | Henry Blanke |
| Screenplay by | Lenore J. Coffee |
| Based on | Beyond the Forest by Stuart D. Engstrand |
| Starring | Bette Davis Joseph Cotten |
| Music by | Max Steiner |
| Cinematography | Robert Burks |
| Editing by | Rudi Fehr |
| Distributed by | Warner Bros. |
| Release date(s) | October 21, 1949 |
| Running time | 97 minutes |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
Beyond the Forest is a 1949 American film, representative of the film noir genre. It was nominated for an Academy Award for best score.
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[edit] Plot
Rosa Moline is the neglected wife of a small-town Wisconsin doctor. She grows bored and becomes infatuated with a visiting Chicago businessman. She extorts money from her husband's patients and uses the cash to flee to Chicago, but the businessman does not welcome her. She returns home and becomes pregnant by her husband. The businessman has a change of heart and follows her to Wisconsin. He wants her back, but not her baby, so she attempts to abort by throwing herself down a hill and gets peritonitis, dying in what Bette Davis called "the longest death scene ever seen on the screen."[1][2]
[edit] Cast and production
The movie was produced by Warner Brothers and directed by King Vidor. The movie producer was listed as Henry Blanke with Jack L. Warner as executive producer. The screenplay was written by Lenore J. Coffee based on a novel by Stuart Engstrand.
The film contains the line, "What a dump!" spoken by Davis, made famous by being quoted in Edward Albee's play Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1962). The line is #62 on the American Film Institute's list of the top 100 movie quotations in American cinema.
The film marks Davis' last appearance as a contract actress for Warner, after eighteen years with the studio. She tried several times to walk away from the film (which only caused the production cost to go through the roof), but Warner refused to release her from their employment contract.[3] She remembered the project as "a terrible movie".
[edit] Cast
- Bette Davis as Rosa Moline
- Joseph Cotten as Doctor Louis Moline
- David Brian as Neil Latimer
- Ruth Roman as Carol
- Minor Watson as Moose
- Regis Toomey as Sorren
- Dona Drake as Jenny
- Sarah Selby as Mildred
[edit] References
- ^ http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0041172 Beyond the Forest (1949) page at the Internet Movie Database, accessed 13 November 2009
- ^ Davis described her end as "the longest death scene ever seen on the screen." Medved & Medved, p. 204
- ^ Medved & Medved, The Hollywood Hall of Shame (1984), p. 204
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