everyone goes to the
blue mesa bar-be-que
by Douglas Messerli
Charles Kenyon and Delmar Daves (screenplay,
based on the stage play by Robert E. Sherwood), Archie Mayo (director) The
Petrified Forest / 1936
Stan Hart, Larry Siegel, and Gail Parent
(teleplay), Dave Powers (director) The Putrified Forest / 1972 [TV
sketch on “The Carol Burnett Show”]
Robert E. Sherwood was one of a number of US
playwrights whose every work during a period of time seemed like a major
statement of theater, but whose works today are sometimes so outrageous as to
be laughable. Even Eugene O’Neill has a few works that fit this category, as
well as William Inge, Maxwell Anderson, Clifford Odets, William Saroyan, Paddy
Chayefsky, and numerous others (almost all of whom later wrote for film as
well) whose works are now remembered more through their movie recreations than
from their revivals on stage. But then even in film, where often experienced
screenwriters—such as Charles Kenyon and Delmar Daves who recreated this
film—worked hard to wipe away their most serious literary blunders, the
evidence of their theatrical absurdities remains.
No
one can possibly blame contemporary audiences for simply laughing at the truly
bizarre plot contrivances and linguistic bombast of Sherwood’s once popular
play (although it lasted only 197 performances on stage) The Petrified
Forest. Imagine even thinking up a play which takes place inside Arizona’s
The Petrified National Forest, near the Blue Mesa, part of the Painted Desert.
The unlikely spot is home to Blue Mesa Bar-Be-Que, the last gasoline station
and diner stop before the park itself. There you will find a proto-rightwing
militarist, Jason Maple (Porter Hall), his father (Charley Grapewin) who loves
to spin tales of his youth when he claims he was shot at by Billy the Kid and
knew Samuel Clemens (Mark Twain), and Jason’s unhappy daughter, Gabrielle
(Bette Davis) who longs to run off the Bourges, France, where her mother, who
long ago has left the wilderness where her US Army man took her as a young
bride, has returned to her native homeland.
Gabby (the nickname she hates) reads French poet François Villon and
paints when she’s not waiting tables, keeping their business accounts, or
trying to shoo off the unwanted attentions of their gas pumper Boze Hertzlinger
(Dick Foran).
If
this quartet isn’t ludicrous enough, Sherwood introduces a British-sounding
intellectual snob, sometimes poet (Leslie Howard), who having been fired from
what sounds like a job of being a gigolo to a wealthy publisher’s wife (the
publisher, incidentally, of his only book) has inexplicably determined to go
West, or East—it doesn’t matter since he, himself, doesn’t know in which
direction he’s headed—on foot without a cent in his pocket. He’s somehow
hitchhiked and walked into this godforsaken dusty spot, where, of course he
finds someone to quote Villon to and who’s willing to listen to every silly
pronouncement about how nature is punishing man (stolen evidently from T.S.
Eliot) for his hubris and how many “breeds” of individuals—like all such snobs,
he loves gathering people into types—are near extinction, himself included.
Alan Squier, the queer man’s name, is what you might describe as a trueblood “cynical
romantic,” disappointed about a world that never existed in the first place.
Gabby, desperate for anyone with an IQ over 60, is fascinated by the
newcomer, although totally aware of his ridiculousness. She shows him her
secret paintings and immediately falls in love with him, imagining him whisking
her off to France to show her everything she’s missed in the metaphorical world
of fossilized beings that Sherwood has conjured up for us. Conversely, in
Gabby, Squier recognizes the vitality, wonderment, and possibilities he has
long ago abandoned, tempted for a moment or so to take her up on her desires,
but too exhausted to imagine that he might be much use to her, even ignoring
the unspoken element of sex.
She serves him up a meal and beer while he serves her up all the
nonsense she’s long been writing for, coming from someone as queer as she
perceives herself to be. Howard has taken on this role,
previously on stage, immediately after playing the poof of The Scarlet
Pimpernel and just before he would perform as the misogynist Henry Higgins
of George Bernard Shaw’s Pygmalion; he performs this role without
powdering his nose or growling at womenkind, but nonetheless makes it apparent
that he’d be of utterly no use to the high-spirited Gabrielle, just as he
probably wasn’t of much value sexually to his publisher’s wife. Sherwood
doesn’t seem to even bother himself with anything sexual let alone homosexual,
although it’s interesting in the wonderfully satiric version of this movie,
whipped up by Carol Burnett’s writers for “Old Old Movies” series, The
Putrified Forest, he’s called by the name that everyone if America’s
macholand perceives him to be, a “sissy.”
Back to the movie, the writer introduces yet a few other passersby on
this desert deserted dirt road: a wealthy investment banker, Chrisholm (Paul
Harvey), his frustrated and at first imperious wife (Genevieve Tobin), and
their chauffeur who have just stopped for a fill-up and a moment in the public
bathroom to clean themselves off. Since he’s just about ready to continue on
his journey, Squier, with help from Gabby, hitches a ride with the driver to
the couple’s destination, the hotel of the nearest city. They don’t get far.
If
you haven’t yet reached your limit of incredulity, perhaps if I tell you that
the gangster Duke Mantee (Humphrey Bogart) has just escaped from prison and is
heading their way with his gang, which should convince you of this work’s
absurdity. Not only is he heading “their way,” but he has picked out the Black
Mesa Bar-Be-Que as the meeting-up place for his girl and two other guys.
Unfortunately, their get-away car has broken down, but fortunately the
Chrisholms with the sissy aboard are also heading their way. The Duke and his
gang kidnap the car, leaving the wealthy couple and their chauffeur to ponder
the situation, while Squier heads back on foot to the diner.
Before you know it, everyone’s at Rick’s—sorry, wrong movie!—everyone
who’s anyone in this part of the country has gotten together at the Black Mesa
Bar-Be-Que, most of them under gun point of the Duke and his gang as Squier
further pontificates, aligning himself with the gangster as types that are
doomed for petrification. Still worried for Gabby’s future, he pulls out a life
insurance policy he has been carrying with him, forces Mrs. Chrisholm to
witness his signature, and demands Duke kill him before he leaves, having
willed the $5,000 policy to Gabrielle.
The
rest of the story really doesn’t matter since it consists simply of further
character revelations from figures in whom by this time we’ve lost all
interest—although there is a wonderful moment when one of Duke’s gang members,
a black man, attempts to make communication as a “bro” with the Chrisholm’s
black chauffeur, who hasn’t a clue what the other is saying to him. Duke’s
friend tries to explain that he’s been liberated since the Civil War, without
the other fully comprehending what he’s saying. That scene alone, in the midst
of racist 1936, seems remarkable.
Duke hears word that his girl and the others have been captured by the
police and finally attempts to leave, despite the fact that by this time the
police have surrounded the diner and are shooting to kill anyone and everyone
in the place. In his hurry to escape, he’s forgotten all about his agreement to
kill off Squier, who now stands in the doorway to prevent his exit until Duke
finally plugs him just to get out the door, the true outsider of this world finally
finding the opportunity to die in Gabrielle arms, the closest he probably has
ever gotten to female adoration.
Gabby,
accordingly, will get her chance to see gay Paris. But what this movie has
really been about other than that free ticket and a moment of imaginary love is
beyond my comprehension. Sure, as Chris Barsanti writes in Slant magazine:
“The Petrified Forest seems to have bigger things on its mind, though,
than romance and a hostage situation. From the sign in the diner that says,
“tipping is un-American, keep your change,” to Gabby’s father’s tin soldier
posturing and the grandfather’s endless romanticized Old West spiels to
Squier’s long ruminations on being the last of a vanishing race, ‘the
intellectuals,’ much of what’s on display here evokes a society on the decline,
propping itself up with patriotic guff, fairy tales, and violence.” But in the
end, despite its attempt to fluff itself up as play of ideas, the original and
its film recreation is nothing but another botched “ship of fools.”
.png)
I
liked The Putrified Forest, with Burnett as the desperate Gabby, Harvey
Korman as Squier, Steven Lawrence as Duke, and Paul Sand as the Duke’s mad dog
killer, Weasel (not in the movie) better. Weasel, desperate to shoot up the
place, is calmed down only like a dog by petting his head, which Gabby
successfully does, Sand’s tennis shoe tapping in rhythm just like a dog’s tail.
When finally, Duke refuses to shoot this satire’s Squier, Gabby herself picks
up his gun and does him in, as she and Duke march out the door singing "La
Marseillaise," which does sort of turn her former diner in Rick’s Café
Américain.
Los Angeles, April 9, 2023
Reprinted from World Cinema Review (April
2023).
.png)
.png)
.png)
.png)
.png)
.png)
.png)
.png)
.png)
