Martin Bradley The tagline read 'Nobody's as good as Bette when she's bad' and the movie, reviled at the time of its release, became a camp classic when it was immortalised in the opening scene of Edward Albee's "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woof". It's actually a lot better than Mr Albee gave it credit for and Bette is magnificently over-the-top as small-town tramp Rosa Moline who wants to ditch her hubbie, (modest little Joseph Cotten), so she can marry bigshot David Brian and run off to Chicago, (the song 'Chicago' plays continuously, in one form or another, on the soundtrack).Okay, it's not one of Bette's greatest performances and, to be honest, she spends the movie chewing the scenery while Lenore J Coffee's screenplay reeks of purple prose. King Vidor was the director so you knew exactly what you were letting yourself in for; remember he was the man who gave us "The Fountainhead" and "Duel in the Sun" and who seemed to take a perverse delight in making his leading ladies suffer. Hysteria was always the name of the game with Mr Vidor. Of course, he was also one of the great visual stylists and even a corn-fed chicken, (it's certainly no turkey), like this looks the part. Without Albee it may well have been forgotten so perhaps we owe him a debt of gratitude. Camp, yes; a classic of its kind, most certainly.

JohnHowardReid Copyright 18 November 1949 by Warner Bros. Pictures, Inc. U.S. release: 22 October 1949. New York opening at the Strand: 21 October 1949. Australian release: 27 April 1951. 8,640 feet. 96 minutes.SYNOPSIS: A woman's dull husband (he's the doctor in a small town) does not help her greedy disposition.NOTES: Davis' last film as a contract star for Warner Bros. Steiner was nominated for an Academy Award for his score in the Drama/Comedy category, losing to Aaron Copland's The Heiress.COMMENT: There is much to enjoy in this high-blown melodrama, despite its wild implausibility and Miss Davis's incredible theatrics in what is virtually a cruel and incisive self-parody. To see Miss Davis as a sultry femme fatale requires a considerable suspension of belief which her garish make-up and ripe mannerisms do nothing to lessen. Still, Miss Davis, for all her faults, is infinitely preferable to Joseph Cotten whose screen personality here is even more woebegone and tiresomely philosophic than usual. The support cast is better: Ruth Roman makes good capital out of her couple of brief appearances, Minor Watson has an unusually meaty role and Dona Drake registers strongly as a slatternly maid. The script has some bizarre touches which Vidor directs with style and relish, particularly the off-beat, storybook-style opening and the elaborate crane shot at the conclusion. Max Steiner's music score consists almost entirely of variations on Fred Fisher's "Chicago" and is quite effective. The photography, especially the location work, is superb. Production values are lavish.

bettedavis-53555 Bette Davis gave many great performances, but she did not make many great films or work with many truly great directors (with the exception of William Wyler & Joseph L. Mankiewicz). King Vidor ranks as one of Bette Davis' greatest directors and Beyond the Forest is her most underrated film (another underrated film is The Private Lives of Elizabeth & Essex, directed by the superb technician Michael Curtiz). The eminent film critic Pauline Kael wrote that "there's not a sane dull scene in this peerless piece of camp." And I agree that this film is never boring. It has elements of film noir, melodrama, comedy and stands the test of time, as it is not sentimental like so many of Bette's soap operas (The Great Lie is a great bore). I challenge anyone to watch this film and be bored by it. Impossible. It starts off slowly, but after the first 20 minutes, it is compulsively watchable: a hoot! And although Bette in her later years said she "loathed" this film, it is clear that she relished the part of Rosa Moline and was living the part as she played it. She poured into the part all of the frustration & fury with Jack Warner and the studio for giving her bad roles & bad scripts, her own fears of aging after she had her baby and she was no longer box office, and all the emotional turmoil (both the sexual electricity & the physical & verbal abuse) of her marriage to William Grant Sherry. Ruth Roman (who played a small role in this film) said that she watched Bette on set and it was all too REAL for her that she was terrified of Bette. And indeed, this is one of Bette's most real performances, however over the top it may be. Rosa Moline is a precursor to Margo Channing in All About Eve, yet I find Beyond the Forest more interesting because King Vidor is more of a stylist than Joseph L. Mankiewicz. All About Eve is theatrical, not cinematic; Beyond the Forest is pure cinema. Savor every frame of this fading femme fatale in this film noir farce. You will laugh at Rosa, be moved by her, feel sorry for her, but ultimately admire her for her courage, pride & determination. She was just a dame who was trying to get out of her own personal prison & hell.

Caroline888 What I love about Bette Davis is that the more normal she seems at the beginning of the movie, the more of a psycho witch she's going to be by the end (with the notable exception of "Now, Voyager", in which the pattern was reversed). And this one delivers on that Bette expectation. In the first five minutes of the story itself, you see her fake a sprained ankle. You wonder why. Duh - she's preparing for major psycho witchiness of exponentially increasing proportions! And I have to say that this one beats most of her other great roles in at least that category - and in the category of making the psycho-ness tragically necessary right from the first minute. Yes, many parts of this movie are over the top melodrama. But HERE COMES THE SPOILER: Despite my status as a vehement pro-lifer and Catholic, I was so taken into Bette's performance that when it looked like her dream of minks and diamonds was going to be thwarted by her secret pregnancy, I found myself thinking "Noooo, Bette, you HAVE to find some way to get an abortion!" And then I found myself smacking myself on the head. But really, by that point, when I had already forgiven her for (Nother Spoiler:) totally murdering another person already, it was like, what's one more life sacrificed to her dreams? So when an actress can make an evil character compelling enough to make the audience root for her to kill people, I would hesitate before calling her a bad actress. Bette is the best!