In A Lonely Place

1950 - Columbia Pictures
Directed By Nicholas Ray


SYNOPSIS

Down-on-his-luck screenwriter Dix Steele (Humphrey Bogart) invites a coat-check girl back to his place. She later turns up dead and he's suspected... given the history of his violent temper. His new next door neighbor (Gloria Grahame) gives an alibi for him to the cops. The two meet and fall in love, but his temper begins to make her suspect he did kill the woman... and she wants to get away!

MY THOUGHTS

A somewhat overlooked classic.

In A Lonely Place is a film noir, but it is a far different animal than other Bogart noirs like The Maltese Falcon, The Big Sleep, and Key Largo. The look of noir is present with the film's beautiful photography. The high contrast shadowy looks amazing. But crime usually plays an important role in noir, but here it exists only on the periphery... in how the characters react to it. This helps to focus the story more on the two main characters.

Bogart is great in the role. At the same time, you both sympathize with him as a lonely man trying to conquer his demons and find love AND you feel the same fear of him that Gloria Grahame does. both likable and detestable at the same time. It's a masterful performance and ranks as one of his best. Grahame is also great and gives a very realistic performance. She was in a deteriorating romance with director Nicholas Ray at the time of making this film, which probably added much to her understanding of the role.

The story also exists as a Hollywood tale. It's not as sharply bitter of a story as Sunset Boulevard (released the same year) but it does take many potshots at the 'money vs. art' conundrum that is the essence of Hollywood film-making (for some anyway!)

In A Lonely Place is an outstanding film and should be better-known than it is.