Caltrops - Peter Molyneux's The Movies

Forum Overview :: Peter Molyneux's The Movies

by Brody Wilder 03/20/2026, 7:35pm PDT

WINNER: The Petrified Forest
Nestled coldly in the bosom of the Great Depression, 1936 was the year Hollywood began slouching towards film noir. The Petrified Forest stars a fresh-faced Humphrey Bogart (he was only 36!) in his breakout role, opposite a still-skinny Bette Davis and the guy from Gone with the Wind who wasn't Clark Gable, Leslie Howard. Bogart plays the sociopathic gangster who takes hostage one of those little roadside diners in the middle of the desert - or "petrified forest", as they call it (sounds made up). Bette Davis is the big-eyed/big-titted waitress who dreams of a better life, while we in the audience are meant to sympathize with sensitive Leslie Howard as the disillusioned drifter who stumbles into this mess.

Trivia: Warner Bros wanted Little Caesar himself, Edward G. Robinson, to assay the Dillingeresque gangster. But leading man Howard said he'd only work with the actor who had originated the role on stage. Bogart repaid the favour by naming his daughter Leslie after him.

By Any Means Necessary: Bullets or Ballots
Robinson made do with the heroic lead in this, the story of a hard-apple cop who goes undercover as a mobster. Bogart once again plays the antagonist, a ruthless crook who thinks there's something off about this new guy. These are the sort of roles he'd be stuck in for the remainder of the decade; for Warner Bros to give dessicated and regretful-looking Bogart the lead, he'd have to be the last actor of his calibre on Earth - or at least on the homefront (foreshadowing!). The always delightful Joan Blondell also appears.

What Comes After M: Fury
Reichsminister of Propaganda Goebbels once offered expressionist director Fritz Lang control of the entire German film industry. Lang said he'd have to think about it, then hocked his wife's jewelry for cash and hopped a train out of the country. His humanist ideals were fundamentally incompatible with Nazi ideology, something which should've been clear to anyone who'd seen his films. Lang specialized in externalizing his characters' subjective perception of the world, casting internal turmoil across the screen in light and shadow. His first Hollywood film was this disorienting depiction of an innocent man accused of kidnapping a child, based on a then-recent real life lynching. Germany may have been a lost cause, but Fritz could still champion social justice in that eternal bastion of liberty, America. *sparklers*

Do It For Randolph Scott: The Last of the Mohicans
It'd be another few years before the western would once again rise above the level of matinee fare, so for now we'll make do with this rollicking adaptation of James Fenimore Cooper's French and Indian War novel. Future big cowboy hero Randolph Scott makes an unconvincing but likeable Hawkeye in a series of lush outdoor adventure setpieces. Often lambasted for turning sombre historical fiction into dime store pulp; if that doesn't sound appealing, you'd be better off watching Michael Mann's 1992 version for your book report.

Prophetic: Things to Come
Britain delivers the speculative fiction film of the decade with Things to Come. It is future year 1940. An unprecedented second world-wide war breaks out between Germany and England, which persists in the style of the first well into the 1960s. By 1970, humanity exists only in feudal enclaves, terminating with extreme prejudice the victims of "wandering sickness" - contagious walking corpses created by chemical and biological warfare. I won't spoil too much more, save that the third act takes place in one of those enlightened post-post-apocalyptic Star Trek futures, where everyone decides to put on the same silver jumpsuit and turn their eyes to outer space. Optimistic in that pre-war fascist sort of way, the fetishization of technocracy doesn't play quite so well in our modern capitalist dystopia.