ThrillMessage There are better movies of two hours length. I loved the actress'performance.

Humaira Grant It’s not bad or unwatchable but despite the amplitude of the spectacle, the end result is underwhelming.

Erica Derrick By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

Hattie I didn’t really have many expectations going into the movie (good or bad), but I actually really enjoyed it. I really liked the characters and the banter between them.

tomsview I have seen this film many times and it never fails to get me in. I am also aware of all the negative reviews it has received with plenty of trash talk using terms such as 'banal', 'overblown' and 'incredibly artificial'. But one description is definitely a backhanded compliment "One of the most enjoyable bad movies ever made".Anyway, who cares about all that, beauty is in the eye of the beholder after all.Recently - instead of getting a life - I watched three Bette Davis movies in one weekend: "All About Eve", "The Letter" and "Beyond the Forest". She was different in each one. Bette Davis had such a distinctive personality that it would be easy to think she just played herself in film after film, but not so. Her Rosa Moline in "Beyond the Forest" is a one-off; I don't think she ever played any other role that way again. Some say she was sending herself up. Apparently she didn't want to play the part and maybe her bad mood helped shape her character.I couldn't help thinking of "Madam Bovary" as I watched this film about a woman who leaves her husband to chase her dream. In Madam Bovary's case the dream was a romantic one; in Rosa's, the dream is more superficial; in both cases the dream turns into a nightmare.Rosa is married to the nice Doctor Lewis Moline (Joseph Cotton), but to her he is just poor and boring. Lewis is the respected doctor in the Wisconsin mill town where they live. Rosa latches onto Neil Latimer (David Brian), a rich businessman from Chicago, and plans to dump Lewis. He is about the only person in town who can't see through her, even their young Indian maid, Jenny (Dona Drake), has her measure. The scenes between Rosa and Jenny are very funny - the film needed a light touch to relieve the angst. It all ends in tears of course, played out in the flickering light of the massive incinerator that dominates the town.Bette Davis thought she was too old for the part, but doesn't that make her character just that much more pathetic? She feels life has passed her by, and she is making a last desperate grab for what she thinks she deserves.Much of the film was shot on location and has a rich look. Max Steiner contributed a powerful score, incorporating the melody "Chicago"; the theme for Rosa's yearning. His music actually has sympathy for Rosa; it understands her, even as it accompanies her to the inevitable tragedy."Beyond the Forest" is a movie where everything is a larger than life, including the emotions. I still think it is fantastic cinema.

Doctor_Mabuse1 BEYOND THE FOREST (1949)Cast: Bette Davis, Joseph Cotten, David Brian.Director: King Vidor.King Vidor's delirious BEYOND THE FOREST is best appreciated as a dry run for Bette Davis' grotesque tour-de-force as "Baby Jane" in Robert Aldrich's black-comic thriller.In such flamboyantly bizarre later films as DUEL IN THE SUN, THE FOUNTAINHEAD, RUBY GENTRY, WAR AND PEACE and SOLOMON AND SHEBA, Vidor demonstrated a perverse fetish for deliberate camp to the point of self-parody. In the universally derided BEYOND THE FOREST, Vidor indulges a florid Gothic Noir driven by Davis' insane performance as a wicked whore from hell.Seen in this light, BEYOND THE FOREST is revealed as an absurdist fore-runner of such wildly over-ripe Davis extravagances as HUSH...HUSH, SWEET CHARLOTTE and THE ANNIVERSARY.Horror Note: The name of Count Dracula's homeland, Transylvania, literally means "Beyond the Forest": "trans" (beyond), "sylvan" (forest). Just thought you might like to know.Rating: OUTSTANDING.

moonspinner55 Notorious Bette Davis...acting against her will in an unsuitable part, although it's a performance many of her fans relish. Davis is about 5-to-10 years too old for role of Rosa Moline, wife of a well-meaning-but-penniless doctor, residing in a small Wisconsin town with starry-eyed dreams of living in Chicago; Rosa's secret lover, a corporate businessman from the Windy City, keeps reeling her in and throwing her back, while the good doctor takes her antics in stride. Screenwriter Lenore Coffee, working from a book by Stuart Engstrand, can't seem to iron out the character eccentricities or dramatic indignities inherent to the plot (she can't even use the novel's title to her advantage), leaving director King Vidor and his cast pretty much on their own. When Rosa gets sick at the finale, we have no idea why; when the lazy, foul-tempered maid sasses her, we have no clue why Rosa even puts up with her (or how the doctor affords her). Vidor directs Davis gently, casually--and of course she brings everything else from home: poison-coated coyness, lewd lips, flip talk, ridiculously playing with her long brunette wig as if she owned it. So, is this respectable work from Bette Davis, in her last film under contract for Warner Bros.? It is a stunning performance for both right and wrong reasons. True, Bette's Rosa is too heavy and shapeless to actually believe she's a grande dame in her horse-and-buggy town (maybe a blonde wig would've helped?); however, Davis is very good in her scenes with Joseph Cotten, and she doesn't go maniacal with the material. The film has been called camp, unintentionally hilarious--and at times it does strike a wild chord--but I think King Vidor was in on the dirty humor. His outlandishness doesn't qualify the film as a success necessarily, but it is certainly enjoyable. **1/2 from ****

PrincessAnanka "Beyond the Forest" is finally getting the respect it's always deserved. A number of film historians are finally appraising this masterpiece as the work of art it is. Thanks to its phenomenal star, Bette Davis, this King Vidor production has had to struggle with a bad reputation since it was first seen back in l949. Davis was going through a breakdown: she hated her studio, her marriage was dead, and Jack Warner finally kicked her ass off the Warner lot. Forever after, Davis always slammed everything about "Beyond the Forest" and people who never even saw it, joked about it and tore it to pieces. Especially, the gay crowds. When I saw "Beyond the Forest" at the old Regency Theater here in Manhattan back in the 80s, no one could enjoy it, since the gaggle of screeching queens ruined it for everyone by camping it up. Davis' inner turmoil and fury is what makes Rosa Moline literally seethe with fury, bristling with electricity in her greatest role. No other major star would have taken the risks that Davis does. As to the many comments about her black wig, make-up, clevage. This is how small-town women tried to look during that era. The Maria Montez look. I remember this from my small Southern town. All women dyed their hair black, grew long tresses, etc. Max Steiner's musical score is among his greatest (next to another masterpiece that Bette always put down, the l942 "In This Our life.")Davis' role is among the greatest ever put on screen. She displays her genius here like never before. To those who like to be clever and cute and view this gem as "camp", get a life. Davis is at her most brilliant. She nearly matches her brilliant portrayal of a psychopathic Southern Belle, Stanley Timberlake, in the great "In This Our Life." Bravo to Bette! To new viewers, watch it alone without the wisecracks, giggles and smart inside jokes. Warner Brothers did itself and its great star proud.