Feeling she was miscast from the start, Bette Davis never liked this slow, overdone melodrama. Upon it's release, critics massacred Beyond The Forest with extreme prejudice across the country. Over time, the film has emerged as a cult classic, along with other films that are so bad they're good. I chose to include it here just for it's camp value.





Davis is Rosa Moline, a bitchy young woman in a small midwest town who is married to a pleasant but dull physician, played by Joseph Cotten. Rosa has the hots for Neil Latimer, a wealthy manufacturer from Chicago. She leaves home and goes to Chicago to meet Latimer, who rebuffs her, saying that he intends on marrying a wealthy socialite. Defeated, Rosa returns to her boring life with Cotten.

"What A Dump!"


Latimer changes his mind, dumps the socialite, and tells Rosa she must divorce her husband and marry him. This conversation is heard by Moose, the caretaker at Brian's hunting lodge. Rosa also discovers that she is pregnant by the doctor, while Moose threatens to tell Latimer of her impending motherhood. Rosa kills Moose and makes it look like a hunting accident.

Rosa then tells her husband that she's leaving him for Latimer. He refuses to allow her to go until after his child is born. She knows he can perform an abortion, but he steadfastly refuses, so she jumps off an embankment to induce a miscarriage. Rosa is successful, but then develops peritonitis.





She refuses help from her doctor husband, and is especially nasty to her jaded housekeeper. (Its worth a viewing just to see their interactions). In a feverish state, she gets out of bed, and staggers toward the train station to catch the express to Chicago. She never makes it, dying on the street, getting only what such a wicked women deserves.





Davis overplays this to the extent of self parody. Rosa is a psychopathic slut with absolutely no redeeming qualities. The end result was a disappointment to all involved, most of all Bette Davis herself. This was her final film with Warner Brothers after a mutual termination of her existing contract with the studio. A rotten way for such a great lady to exit.