Beyond the Forest (1949)

Directed by

King Vidor

Genre

drama film, film noir, crime film, romance film

Country

United States

Runtime

1h 29m

Rating

6.7 of 10 from 54 voters

Elsewhere

IMDb

How it feels

A woman in a small town chafes against her dull marriage and dreams of escaping to a glamorous city. She manipulates the people around her, leading to devastating consequences for everyone involved.

melodramatictensebitterclaustrophobicunyieldingsoapybleakoperatic

What happens

Beyond the Forest is a 1949 American melodrama directed by King Vidor, and featuring Bette Davis, Joseph Cotten, David Brian, and Ruth Roman. The screenplay is written by Lenore Coffee based on the 1947 novel by Stuart Engstrand. The film marks Davis's 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. She remembered the project as "a terrible movie", and her death scene at the end of the film as "the longest death scene ever seen on the screen". (from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA)

Trailer

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