In the midst of the Great Depression, Alan Squier, a failed British writer, now a disillusioned, penniless drifter, wanders into a roadside diner in the remote town of Black Mesa, Arizona, at the edge of the Petrified Forest.

He mooches a ride from wealthy tourists Mr. and Mrs. Chisholm; but after only a few minutes on the road they encounter Duke Mantee, a notorious gangster fleeing a massive police pursuit, whose car has broken down.

Bogart, who won the stage role in part because of his physical resemblance to Dillinger, studied film footage of the gangster and mimicked some of his mannerisms in his portrayal.

[3] For the film, Warner Brothers intended to cast the more bankable Edward G. Robinson as Duke; but Howard, whose contract gave him final script control, informed the studio that he would not appear in the movie version without Bogart as his co-star.

[3] In 1948, Robinson portrayed a character similar to Duke Mantee—a gangster holding a disparate group of people hostage in a Florida hotel—in Key Largo.

[7][8][9] A half-hour radio adaptation starring Joan Bennett, Tyrone Power, and Bogart also aired on The Screen Guild Theater on January 7, 1940.

In 1955, a live television version was performed in color as an installment of Producers' Showcase, a weekly dramatic anthology, featuring Bogart (now top-billed) as Mantee, Henry Fonda as Alan, and Lauren Bacall as Gabrielle.

The television version differs from the film in that it opens with Bogart and his men shown briefly in a getaway car driving through the desert and conversing for a moment.

In the late 1990s, Bacall donated the only known kinescope of the 1955 performance (albeit in black and white) to the Museum of Television & Radio (now the Paley Center for Media), where it remains archived for viewing in New York City and Los Angeles.

Playing the roles they created in the stage version are Leslie Howard and Humphrey Bogart – the former a soul-broken, disillusioned author, seeking, by wayfaring, to find some new significance in living, and the latter a killer, harried and surrounded by pursuers, revealing in his last moments a bewildered desperation which is not far removed from that of the writer.

"[14] Writing for Maclean's magazine at the time of the film's release, Ann Ross observed: “Very young people won't find The Petrified Forest much fun, but adults, who like wise and witty talk, with or without gunplay, should find it rewarding.”[12] Writing for Sur in September 1936, Jorge Luis Borges said the film was “one of the most intense that I have seen.” He praised the “extraordinarily distinct characters”, observing that “once the allegorical motive is dismissed or relegated to a secondary level.

[16] In 1972, a take-off of the film titled "The Putrified Forest" was a sketch on The Carol Burnett Show, featuring Steve Lawrence and Paul Sand.