Human Desire

Fresh from their exertions in Fritz Lang's superheated The Big Heat, Glenn Ford and Gloria Grahame (joined by Broderick Crawford) reunite for the director's recension of Zola's La Bete Humaine. This time, the heat is not so explosive, but this film's dense, acrid smokes smoulders away to the point of choking claustrophobia. Like Hitchcock's Strangers on a Train, the film opens with us criss-crossing a maze of railroad tracks, and the locomotives, cars and switching yards are never far away in this tale of abuse, frustration, adultery and homicides (plural) somewhere out in the prairie heartland. Grahame, when bad, is always good, but she's never been badder or better than here, as the young wife of the violently jealous Broderick Crawford. Glenn Ford, just mustered out of Korea, gets his brakeman's job back and chugs right into the middle of this marital discord. Lang tightens the screws slowly and expertly for the full 90 minutes of this midwestern nightmare (the final words of which, unspoken, are: "Trenton makes, the world takes," read backwards on a railway trestle). This is a canonical work of film noir, left -- like too many others -- in unviewed obscurity. It's every bit the equal of The Big Heat or Scarlet Street.

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.

Well-done film noir about a railroad engineer, Jeff Warren (Glenn Ford), who gets mixed up with a beautiful femme fatale (Gloria Grahame) who comes complete with husband who has murdered a man in a train car in an act of jealousy - and happens to be one of Warren's co-workers. Meeting her on the train just after the murder, kissing her within moments of meeting, it seemed like, our railroad man is soon embroiled in a love affair with this woman, who can't break away from her husband as he is holding a piece of blackmail over her head involving the murder.

This film is quite a good one, boosted up considerably by the great performance given by Gloria Grahame, who brings a sad vulnerability to her character and really makes this film. Broderick Crawford is also very good, as the angry, murderous husband and Glenn Ford comes across as the handsome, strong, quiet type which completely suits his part - well done acting all around for this. This film also features interesting photography and lighting typical of this style of film - I especially like the way the train scenes are shot, with the camera strapped to the front of the train, giving a first-person ride along the railroad tracks. A gripping film with a plot that kept me interested from beginning to end.

"Human Desire" is NOT one of Fritz Lang's masterpieces. Though it has its moments, it ultimately comes off as a second-rate work. A remake of Jean Renoir's 1938 "La bete Humaine" starring Jean Gabin, "Human Desire" is less successful than Renoir's adaptation of the Zola novel, but when all things considered, it is not bad, and is filled with some interesting geometric images & visuals. The film turns out to be gloomy, often bleak melodrama that has a striking affinity with Billy Wilder's "Double Indemnity" in its plot, dealing with a married woman (Gloria Grahame) trying to get rid of her bland husband (Broderick Crawford) through the help of a train engineer (Glenn Ford). If you stop concentrating on the melodramatic plot and focus on Lang's lovely architectural compositions, "Human Desire" becomes quite engrossing picture, on par with "The Big Heat", Lang's previous film noir with Grahame & Ford. From the first image to the last, the scenes of railroad tracks are masterfully handled: we see a series of precise lines and converging tracks moving forward. Moreover, Grahame and Crawford's rooms in their working class house are characterized by a series of squares, boxes, rectangles to conjure up a nightmarish vision of fate and destiny.

Also, it is worth noting that in the same house we see the appearance of television for the first time in Lang's films. Lang will later explore the dangers of media manipulation in his last two American films: "While the City Sleeps" and "Beyond a Reasonable Doubt".

The picture is based on the Emile Zola's novel ¨La bete humaine¨. A mild- mannered and essentially decent ex-soldier (Glenn Ford) working as unhinged trainman becomes romantically involved with a mysterious , alluring but heartless and vicious femme fatal (Gloria Grahame) . He lives temporarily at home with an old friend man (Edgar Buchanan) . She is unhappily married to a tough and brutal hubby as ever ruined (Broderick Crawford). They then are involved in a mutually destructive affair . She managed and is convinced for her unwanted husband has his job back , but he has been fired , then the problems and subsequently murder are cropping up , but she plots other malignant purports .

Columbia Pictures Film production, puts all the force of the screen into a challenging drama of furious passions and though there're pretty dialog and little action is amount entertaining . It's a psychological , dark melodrama about fatalism , duplicity , pessimism and human passions . Stylish , well designed and compelling drama , although is sometimes annoyingly shrill . Love , hatred , killing , vengeance indeed figure strongly in this brightly seedy portraits of low life as Fritz Lang did also in ¨Big Heat¨ (1953) equally with Ford and Grahame . The well-designed atmosphere elaborately recreated in railway , trains , stations is entirely convincing throughout . Wonderful performances by the entire casting . Gloria Grahame (married at the time to Nicholas Ray) as manipulating woman who subtly destroys them , winning yet another awesome acting with a smouldering predatory and absolutely hypnotic interpretation in her account of the domineering that occurs from start to ending . The film contains stunning cinematography by classic cameraman Burnett Guffey . The motion picture is narrated with agility and intelligence by the great director Fritz Lang . This movie along with ¨Scarlet Street¨ are remakes of Jean Renor films . In fact ¨the Bete Humaine¨(1938) by Renoir and with Jean Gabin and Simone Simon is considered a superior version .