"I was born when she kissed me, I died when she left me, I lived a few weeks while she loved me."

of course, but so many other immortal lines here. one of the rawest films the studio system ever produced.

Scenes from a Noir Marriage

or as Netflix might categorize it: "existential romance"

this is what we talk about when we talk about Bogart.

poor Ray & Grahame... i thought those crazy kids were gonna make it.

"A good love scene should be about something else besides love. For instance, this one. Me fixing grapefruit. You sitting over there, dopey, half-asleep. Anyone looking at us could tell we're in love."

A paranoid phantasmagoria of broken people, shattered Hollywood dreams, violent American character, Bogart and Grahame personals, New Deal and shifting political space of the era, romantic longing cut short. One of the most perfect bad trip movies, probably because it is also one of the most romantic.

5 Reasons why this film is a masterpiece:

1. It's the best film Nicholas Ray ever made; a noir-tinged drama rendered in dark visuals of exhilarating beauty.

2. It showcases probably the greatest performance of Bogie's career as the short-fused screenwriter Dix Steele, a character he imbues with a neurotic edge that is frightening in its intensity.

3. This dialogue: 'I was born when she kissed me. I died when she left me. I lived a few weeks while she loved me'.

4. Gloria Grahame is in it.

5. It just is, OK?!

"The act of a sick mind with the urge to destroy something young and lovely."

Perhaps the most brutal and devastating Hollywood break-up film, in part due to the unbearable amount of real emotional history being exposed on the screen, but also how it’s been constructed as both an ostensible murder mystery noir where the answer doesn't bring any relief only more pain and a romance melodrama poisoned with paranoia, violence and self-loathing. A filmmaker and a killer become one and the same because both carry the impulse to take what's in their imagination and bring it into the real, tangible world.

Full discussion on ep 250 of my podcast SLEAZOIDS.

I've never seen Bogie become such a scary dude

Bogart grabs Grahme by the neck to confess his love. He is vulnerable in his eyes, but violent by his hands.

classic hollywood noirs are great because pretty much all of them only have four characters trying to solve a confusing crime by smoking in a handful of sets, and all of them own incredibly hard

grapefruit