Who cold-bloodedly shoots a man as she would a deer because he’s in her way, and who destroys her unborn child because she’d rather be in Chicago. A woman who scorns her dull husband because he’s dull, and who lusts after a rich guy because he’s rich. Bette made sure you’d remember that.īut the role of Rosa was that of a twitchy, bitchy slut. Roles worthy of an actress of her range, genius, ambition-and of that I’m-The-Diva-In-The-Room-And- Don’t-You-Forget-It attitude. Movies in which she played mature, complex, multi-faceted women facing heartbreak and crises. lot-a twice-awarded Oscar winner, who starred in such substantial films as The Letter, The Old Maid, Dark Victory, Now, Voyager.
Bette was nothing if not a realist.Īnd she was also the Queen of the Warners Bros. She was beyond the aspiring sexpot stage. She had been acting for 20 years, she had recently birthed a child, she was spreading middle age throughout her body. And at the time of the film’s release, in 1949, Davis was also past 40. It was the kind of tarty role Bette had been forced to do 12, 15 years earlier, as in Ex-Lady or Parachute Jumper or Satan Met A Lady roles she despised. Rosa is a youngish, none-too-bright woman, maybe in her late 20s, a crude, flaunting sexpot with guttersnipe morals. In a 1965 Sight and Sound interview, Bette said it was a “terrible movie,” and that she was too old for the part. She’s the kind of woman none of us ladies want to be.īette Davis was furious when Jack Warner cast her as Rosa in Beyond The Forest. Those really in the know don’t need magazines to go figure. Just to get her to push a 25-cent-piece across the counter. Rosa never does figure that those magazines sold her a bill of goods.
They’re too gauche, too heedless, too naïve. But Rosa Molines don’t get those chances. Given the chance, maybe she’d have eventually caught on. But once in the Big City, in her dumpy suit, her floppy hat, her thick-soled ankle-strapped sandals, Rosa screams small-town at every pore.
Which she takes for a look of Big-City-Here-I-Belong. Reading fashion magazines for inspiration, trusting their surface gloss, copying their ad-page elegance. Born into and stuck in a hick Wisconsin burg, she dreams of Chicago-she’s gonna Make It Big by getting to the Big City. In her swing-necked blouse, her hip-swinging skirt, her stockingless legs and fuck-me shoes.
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