In a Lonely Place

The fickle world of writing scripts has set the beat, left you lonely, isolated, in retreat, cynical and quite sneering, motivation is despairing, a murdered hat-check girl brings police and some heat. Laurel Gray provides an alibi, defence, an affair that takes a day to start, commence, passions burn and fires rage, as you draft from page to page, past history suggests, you are quite tense. As time moves on, your anger oversteps the mark, your whole demeanour's built on fury and is dark, as you erupt and overflow, people aren't safe, punches get thrown, you're bite's at lot more worse, after you've barked.

Great performances, a dark and disturbing tale, as relevant today as it was back then, which can't always be said for films of the time.

Nicholas Ray is a director who has almost been forgotten these days, despite making brilliant movies like 'They Live By Night', 'On Dangerous Ground', 'Johnny Guitar' and 'Rebel Without A Cause', and numbering Martin Scorsese and Wim Wenders among his fans (the latter even gave him a small role in his 'The American Friend'). 'In A Lonely Place' could be Ray's best. It's a fascinating movie that mixes drama, suspense and romance in a very interesting way. You could call it Noir I suppose, but it's a very difficult movie to tie down. Humphrey Bogart plays a bitter, hard drinking and frequently violent screen writer who becomes a murder suspect when a young girl (Martha Stewart) is killed. Gloria Grahame ('Crossfire', 'The Big Set Up') is a neighbour who supplies him with an alibi. This odd way of meeting leads into a romance. At first everything is wonderful, and Bogart is even writing again, but bit by bit Grahame starts to see his dark side and begins to fear him, even suspecting that he may have been involved in the murder after all. I don't think I've ever seen Bogart better. It's a terrific performance, and while his character can be charming at times he's also surprisingly unlikeable and intense (we are told he broke an old girlfriend's nose, for example. Imagine Mel Gibson or Brad Pitt doing that in a movie today and still being the romantic lead!). Grahame pulls off a difficult role too, being torn between love and terror. They both make a great team. Such a pity they never worked together after this. I also liked Frank Lovejoy ('House Of Wax', 'The Hitch-Hiker') who plays Bogart's cop buddy. 'In A Lonely Place' is a movie not to be overlooked. I thought it was superb entertainment.

A scorching performance from Bogey makes this film a real classic, his Dixon Steele one of the great screen characters. In this more biting version of the plot of Hitchcock's suspense/comedy Suspicion, Bogart is a kind and loving screenwriter with a violent streak of temper waiting to break out and a taste for a drink or two, wooing Gloria Grahame's pretty young actress next door. The death of a young girlfriend of his hangs over him throughout the movie, as Graham at first believes him to be innocent, then later, having fallen for his charms, begins to suspect he may have had something to do with the girl's death after all, as his temper becomes more and more uncontrolled and frightening. The police circle around, making his nervous anger worse; the relationship begins to crumble into a mess of fear, lies and misunderstanding. Through all this Dixon Steele emerges as a great and brilliant creation, a highlight even in a career as illustrious as that of Bogart, a charming and witty man when happy, a black and vengeful man when roused to anger, a man of contradictions that only seems the more real, heroic, and ultimately tragic. Bogart's performance is brilliant, but the setting works well too, Grahame is great as the sassy girl he falls for, then frightens, the story chugs along at a fair lick, but allowing plenty of time for the many fun minor characters to develop well, and the script is a corker - wonderful stuff.

Very adult film about a surly Hollywood writer, a would be actress, and a murder. Among the very best Bogart performances, yet this film is practically unknown. Top notch acting across the board. Bogart and Grahame are a terrific team (she is the designing actress), but also good are Frank Lovejoy, Jeff Donnell (as his wife), Martha Stewart (no not that one) as the murder victim, Art Smith as the agent, and Robert Warwick (just wonderful) as the washed-up actor. Everything in the story revolves around Hollywood and movie making, but this is NOT really a film about Hollywood; it's a murder mystery. Great script is full of memorable lines, and all the supporting actors are sharp. Ruth Warren is funny as the maid, and Ruth Gillette is really spooky as the masseuse. Carl Benton Reid is the Lieutenant, and William Ching another officer. But the center is Bogart's harsh, unrelenting character. His Dixon Steele must rank with his best characters. And we never get to know him, nor is there any apology for his toughness. He seems almost psychotic--very rare for the hero of the 1950s movie. This also rates as one of Grahame's best performances. A truly unique Hollywood movie all round. In a Lonely Place still rates as an undiscovered gem.

For all the praise film-noir is lavished with (quite a lot of it valid), the majority of it relies on convention as much as the standard white-picket-fence, happy-ending 'family' film does: just invert the

cliches and bathe them in deep-focus shadows. While this movie, on its surface, resembles the classic-style film noir of DOUBLE INDEMNITY, it's a whole different animal. No calculating evil females or tough guys masking hearts of gold populate IN A LONELY PLACE. It's a much more wrenching and powerfully disturbing film because the murder that draws the protagonists together turns out to be of peripheral importance, while the love story between Humphrey Bogart's troubled screenwriter and Gloria Grahame's B-actress spins inexorably towards damnation completely on its own power. The basic story has him a suspect in a killing and her in love with him yet unsure of his innocence, but director Nicholas Ray stages the proceedings so that WE see it's not the murder that disturbs her but her own conviction that his self-destructive and volatile nature will destroy them both. Yet, Ray never takes the easy way out of having Bogart turn monster on her. You care deeply about these people, hoping desperately (as Bogart's agent does in the film) that some transforming moment will come that will spare these people and allow their deeply felt love to flourish and heal them both, even as the evidence before your own eyes tells you there ain't no way. For 1950 -hell, for any year- such an unsentimental and uncompromising treatment of a tragic adult relationship is a terrible wonder to behold. The shadows suffusing this excellent film come not from UFA-influenced lighting but from moral and spiritual desolation, the death throes of old Hollywood, the coming of McCarthyism and the Black Dahlia murder of 1947. But most of all, they're projected from within the characters themselves. The finest work of Bogart, Grahame and Ray. Special note should be taken of Ray and Grahame, whose own deteriorating relationship formed the template for the doomed lovers; for them, this film is an act of great courage. Bogart himself has taken elements of all his previous romantic loners and blended them with the sour pigments of Fred C Dobbs; as the star and executive producer, his performance is unflinching in its honesty, and as fearless as Grahame and Ray. See this movie.