CheerupSilver Very Cool!!!

Colibel Terrible acting, screenplay and direction.

Cassandra Story: It's very simple but honestly that is fine.

Phillida Let me be very fair here, this is not the best movie in my opinion. But, this movie is fun, it has purpose and is very enjoyable to watch.

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.

BILLYBOY-10 What a hoot. Her last flick before leaving Warner Brothers which she hated so much that she impersonates a (male) female impersonator impersonating her. Just think of it! Way way over the top Bette. "What a dump" "If I don't get out of here I'll die...If I don't get out of here, I hope I die" Later, Liz Taylor would do an impersonation of her in Who's Afraid of Virginia Wolfe in the opening scene of that movie. Here Bette plays Rosa Moline, as Liz describes her: "She's a housewife, she buys things" and "she's discontent". Boy, oh boy, Is she ever. And mean. And evil. And conniving. And scheming. And toting a rifle and shooting porcupines because "they irritate me". A million laughs. Honestly, its precious. Almost as bad (good) as her 'Dead Ringer'

bkoganbing Any other actress than Bette Davis couldn't have even made this trashy a film rate as high as it does. Bette was winding up her contract with Warner Brothers and Jack Warner gave her a stinker as a going away present. So Bette does what Bette always did when she got a part like Rosa Moline, just shout her way through and pull out all the restraints.For reasons that defy any belief Bette thinks she's way much better than the other citizens of her small Wisconsin town. Or at least destined for better things. How she gets them is to seduce a millionaire played by David Brian who has a hunting lodge in the area. He lives in Chicago and she dreams of going to Chicago like it was the Emerald City. And a few emeralds wouldn't be bad either.The problem is that she's married to kindly country doctor Joseph Cotten who's content with his life. That's a good deal of the problem with this film. Cotten is one of my favorite players, he's a person of great class always in his prime years. The man definitely qualified for sainthood. Davis looks so bad because Cotten is so good. The two have no chemistry at all together. That in a strange way helps the film which is about a pair of unhappy marrieds. But there was no way Cotten could have done much with a character who is as big a milksop as Dr. Moline.You will look far and wide among thousands of cans of film or DVDs or VHSs and will never find a character in any of them as incredibly self centered as Bette Davis's Rosa Moline. Everyone quotes her 'what a dump' line, but she's constantly saying even to herself 'I'm Rosa Moline' as if Hershey wraps her fecal matter and sells it as chocolate.And talking about a dump, when she reaches for the big moment Brian takes one royal dump on her. But that doesn't deter Bette in the slightest. She has no conscience whatever even to committing a couple of murders.Max Steiner's original music earned Beyond The Forest an Oscar nomination. Within his original score is interwoven the classic popular song Chicago which acts like a siren call luring Bette to what she feels will be good times and good living in the Windy City with Brian.Beyond The Forest is well remembered by Davis fans because of how she gave one of the most brazen and overacted performances in the history of cinema to breathe life into an unbelievable character.

jakeev67 Beyond the Forest is often considered one of Bette Davis' worst choices of roles in her career. Even she said so.After all, she was to old for the one film's lowest of characters in Rose Moline.But after 60 years, what may have been a bad choice for Bette actually turns out to be a cult, camp classic.After all, Rose was a despicable, careless woman who had no qualms killing her own unborn child.It might have the role that should have got away, but despite the junk, nobody could have done it better than Bette Davis.