Désirs humains

Glenn Ford, Gloria Grahame, and Broderick Crawford deal with "Human Desire" a 1954 film directed by Fritz Lang and based on Emile Zola's "La Bete Humaine." Fresh from Korea, Jeff Warren (Ford) is a railroad engineer currently staying with his friend (Edgar Buchanan) and his family, one of whom is a young woman interested in Jeff. And no wonder - remember, this is Glenn Ford. One of the railroad bosses, Carl Buckley (Crawford) loses his job in a fit of temper and asks his wife Vicki (Grahame) to appeal to a wealthy and powerful family friend to help him get his job back. Well, she does, but when she returns successful many hours later and wants to hit the shower, it doesn't take much to figure out just how she accomplished this feat. Blind with anger, Buckley makes her write a letter saying she will meet the man in his train compartment. Buckley kills him there and keeps the letter to hold over Vicki.

As she was seen near the murder compartment, Vicki flirts with Ford to keep her out of the investigation and eventually they become involved. That's when Vicki starts hinting around that she needs the letter found and her husband dead - not necessarily in that order.

Not being familiar with the source material, I can't comment on this film as well as some others here. The postwar era was not Lang's strongest; he seems to have fallen out of favor and not getting the budgets or the scripts he once did. That being said, this is a very absorbing noir with Gloria Grahame being completely hateful and Ford being Mr. Nice Guy who is in this woman's clutches. Crawford's character is an odd one; he's presented as a good guy and then suddenly he goes off and becomes a total madman.

What makes this film is the sexual tension between Ford and Grahame. Ford was a wonderful movie star but with a limited range. What he had going for him beside good looks was major sex appeal, and while Grahame burns, he smolders. They make a hot team.

Perhaps the story and characters could have been fleshed out more; as it is, it's entertaining with good directing, acting, and some interesting shots. Great for noir fans.