The Petrified Forest (1955)

Gabrielle Maple works in a dusty desert gas stationcafé but yearns for the life of an artist in France knowing there must be something finer than the provincial deadend she is trapped in A hitchhiking writer the disillusioned Alan Squier appears and revitalizes her dreams of a better place and finds his own sense of worth refreshed by this vital young girl When Duke Mantee and his gang wanted killers show up and take hostages Gabrielle falls in love with the poetic Alan and Squier begins to see a way to give Gabby the life she deserves