Starring: Humphrey Bogart, Gloria Grahame, Art Smith, and Frank Lovejoy
Directed by: Nicholas Ray
On it's surface, In a Lonely Place revolves around down-and-out screenwriter Dixon Steele (Bogart), desperately in need of a new hit to get him back into the Hollywood game. One night he takes home a hatcheck girl who has read the novel he is supposed to adapt for the screen, figuring it would save him the trouble of actually reading it himself. He ends up getting more than he bargained for from the arangement, as the girl is found dead the next day, and Steele finds himself the main suspect of the investigation.
A glimmer of hope appears in Steele's life just in the nick of time in the form of his beautiful new neighbor, aspiring actress Laurel Gray (Grahame). They fall in love and embark on a 'Hollywood romance,' but like most matches made in tinsletown, the relationship slowly begins to unravel as mistrust mounts until Steele and Gray find themselves and their relationship spinning wildly out of control.
There's more going on in In a Lonely Place, which should be rather obvious to the more astute of moviewatchers. In a Lonely Place is as David Thomson describes in Film: The Critic's Choice, "a portrait of Hollywood losing confidence in itself." It wasn't the first film to expose the ugly underbelly of of the motion picture capital of the world, for the subject seemed to be all the rage at the time, as seen in popular films like All About Eve and especially Sunset Blvd., and would appear in such films as The Bad and the Beutiful and The Barefoot Contessa within the next few years. But as Thomson points out, In a Lonely Place is "more somber than these films because the corruption of Hollywood is viewed with less melodrama."
In a Lonely Place has been viewed as a window into the stormy marriage of Ray and Grahame (they would break up the next year after Ray caught Grahame with his seventeen year old son from another marriage), and it's also been interpreted as a film that reflects the paranoia in Hollywood caused by Joseph McCarthy and his famous "witch-hunts." Some of these interpretations may have been intended, or maybe not, but however the viewer chooses to view it, it's undeniable that In a Lonely Place fascinates on multiple levels.
Humphrey Bogart's performance in In a Lonely Place is in my opinion far and away his greatest performance as an actor. In many other films, namely Casablanca and The Big Sleep, his work is more iconic, but here we see the unseen facet of the Bogart persona- it's almost a look at what would happen if Rick Blaine or Philip Marlowe suddenly lost control. Some find his acting hammy in In a Lonely Place, but I see the deepest, darkest depth of the human soul in Bogie's wide, feverish eyes. His inevitable downfall is obvious to us as the audience from the start, but it's heartbreaking all the same as we see the perpetual Bogart cool shatter into a million tiny pieces.
Besides exposing a different side of Bogart, In a Lonely Place allowed Grahame to give what is perhaps her greatest performance. It also furthered the career of budding young director Nicholas Ray, who would within in the next few years make several revered Hollywood classics, namely Rebel Without a Cause and Johnny Guitar. It also gave us one of film's immortal lines with "I was born when she kissed me. I died when she left me. I lived a few weeks while she loved me."
In a Lonely Place was recently released on DVD after an extensive restoration by Columbia/Tristar that restores this gorgeous black and white gem to its original glory. One of the best films ever made (in my opinion, of course) will now be able to reach a new audience, and remind us old fans how great it truly is.
(Black and White, In English)
- June 27, 2003
