Columbia
Pictures Corporation, 93m 36s
"I
was born when she kissed me. I died when she left me. I lived a few weeks while
she loved me."
The
year 1950 saw the release of SUNSET
BOULEVARD, arguably the finest film
noir to focus on a has-been, and NIGHT
AND THE CITY, perhaps the best to zero-in on a never-was. Of at least equal
importance was director Nicholas Ray's IN
A LONELY PLACE, in which Humphrey Bogart's Dixon Steele embodies the
has-been from a professional standpoint and the never-was in terms of his
private life. Even in the downbeat film
noir mix, IN A LONELY PLACE
occupies special status when it comes to "feel bad" movies. It is one
of the most tragic of all doomed love stories.
By the
age of 50, a lot of living had been etched into the face of Humphrey DeForest
Bogart. After serving in the U.S. Navy, the WWI veteran worked on Broadway
shows in the 1920s and 1930s. He found some success on the screen with his role
in THE PETRIFIED FOREST (1936),
which resulted in a contract with Warner Bros. He would specialize in supporting
roles as gangsters from 1936 to 1940, but ascended to tier-one status in 1941
with HIGH SIERRA and THE MALTESE FALCON. The following year,
he would be nominated for an Oscar for his iconic performance in CASABLANCA, ranked #2 on the American
Film Institute's list of the 100 finest American films of all time that was
published in 1998. Bogart married Lauren Bacall in 1945, a woman 25 years
younger than he was. The marriage was famously happy, though not without
issues. One point of contention was Bogart's addiction to alcohol; the heavy
smoker and drinker was the original ringleader of the Hollywood Rat Pack. In
the fall of 1947, the liberal Democrat Bogart and his wife helped form the
action group Committee for the First Amendment in protest of the House
Un-American Activities Committee hearings. The oft-cited quote from IN A LONELY PLACE at the beginning of
this review takes on added significance with historical perspective: Bogart was only 57 when he died, and his
widow would live another 57 years after his death.
It
comes without surprise, given the above footnotes, that numerous Bogart
biographers have noted strong similarities between Bogart and Steele. That
Bogart's own Santana Pictures Corporation produced IN A LONELY PLACE speaks to the actor’s personal connection to the
character he portrayed. A Hollywood screenwriter by trade, Dixon Steele is a
man with proven talent but a notoriously quick temper. He has fallen on hard
times; his last project did not exactly pack 'em through the turnstiles. Though
it has been a while since his last box office hit, his affable agent Mel
Lippman (Art Smith, blacklisted after director Elia Kazan named him) has an
adaptation project in mind for Steele, who openly detests the debasement of
film artistry into popcorn-selling entertainment. Thinking he is being
commissioned to continue that lamentable trend, Steele does not approach the
adaptation prospect with alacrity. So sure is Steele the book “Althea Bruce” is
trash he recruits pleasant but dimwitted checkroom attendant Mildred Atkinson
(Martha Stewart) to relate her interpretation of the novel suggested by the agent
Lippman.
Steele
is in the wrong place (his own apartment!) at the wrong time when various
warning signals go off (the mature man seen escorting a much younger woman, his
failure to ensure she gets home without issue, her repeated cries for
"help" while acting out the novel). As the fatalistic noir world would have it, Atkinson is
murdered, found having been discarded from a moving vehicle. Captain Lochner
(Carl Benton Reid) believes he has a viable suspect in Steele, who is
unconcerned with disentangling himself from the police department's murder
investigation. Steele's stoic calm is beyond belief ("...that is unless you
plan to arrest me for lack of emotion."). Lochner later asserts,
"He's hiding something, and I doubt if it's the proverbial heart of
gold." Steele's new neighbor and B-movie actress Laurel Gray (Gloria
Grahame, director Ray's wife at the time of filming) becomes his alibi, while openly
professing her fondness for the rugged countenance of Steele.
Though
the viewer is left without sufficient cause to be as suspicious of Steele as
Lochner, IN A LONELY PLACE is
consistent in its suggestion that Steele easily could have killed Atkinson during any number of his outbursts. Like
so many flawed noir protagonists, his
past transgressions have a way of clinging to his present life. At first those
who irritate Steele seem rather deserving of his preferred form of conflict
resolution (his fists, your face). At the outset, there is an angry husband
(Charles Cane) who gutlessly flees the scene when Steele shows he is
unimpressed with the man's tough talk, and soon afterward Steele defends
perpetually inebriated "thespian" Charlie Waterman (Robert Warwick)
after an arrogant filmmaker (Lewis Howard) insults the hopelessly washed-up
actor. But as the narrative progresses, it becomes more and more difficult to
excuse Steele's endless hostilities. In one of his most startling displays of
uncontrolled emotion, Steele grabs a rock and is about to cave in the head of a
young man (Don Hamin) whose only offense was to express anger that Steele's
reckless driving ruined a fresh paintjob. Gray's plea is all that stops Steele
from killing. He sometimes attempts to atone for his bad behavior, but his
paranoid sensibility persistently betrays his more admirable qualities. In a
cringe-worthy moment, Steele strikes the milquetoast Lippman, as harmless a
person as one could meet. Tension mounts as Gray understandably becomes
increasingly concerned about Steele's potential to explode without thinking. As
erratic a personality as Steele is at the film's exposition, he is a far lesser
man at the conclusion, when it becomes evident there is a price for treating
everyone with disdain. In THE MALTESE
FALCON, Bogart's Samuel Spade cannot help but laugh to himself a little
when he notices his hand shaking after an episode of merely acting volatile. In
the final act of IN A LONELY PLACE,
his Steele character's shaking hand reflects an inability to maintain his
composure. Without question, the neurotic Steele character anticipates Bogart's
disturbed Lieutenant Commander Philip Francis Queeg, whose headaches only get
worse in THE CAINE MUTINY (1954).
Among
the most familiar of noir tropes that
energize IN A LONELY PLACE is the
soldier's struggle to adapt to a post-WWII society. Detective Nicolai (Frank
Lovejoy) remembers Steele as his commanding officer during the war, a time when
"…he was a good officer and his men liked him.” Tellingly, the easily riled
Steele has not had a commercial hit since before
WWII. In one sense a study of a veteran's alienation, in another the film
serves as an indictment of a parasitic Hollywood studio system that requires
dangerous personalities like Steele to function. The writer's capacity to
create is the film title's "lonely place," a mental dungeon confined
deep within Hollywood, which makes this film perhaps the darkest of all things film noir. For Steele, the development
of fiction for public consumption comes at the expense of a productive personal
life. The mutual exclusivity that keeps professional and private life separate
is perceptible when Steele declares his love to Gray in a moment that sounds
more scripted than heartfelt. Fictitious violence and actual violence converge
when Steele gleefully encourages his old Army buddy Nicolai to choke his wife
Sylvia (Jeff Donnell) in a reenactment of murder. Very quickly, fiction creeps
into reality and causes intense discomfort, while the lighting of Bogart
accents the severity of his disturbed state. The implication is any scenarist
skilled in the art of depicting murder would have to have devoted plenty of
serious thought to the subject. “I’ve killed dozens of people, in pictures,” says
Steele. Detective Nicolai confesses to learning more about crime investigation
from Steele than from conventional police procedure. Steele even advises the
authorities to "…look for a man like me…" and his instincts about
Henry Kesler (Jack Reynolds) are legit. Indeed a similar personality to Steele,
Kesler is defeated by his own jealous rage.
Female
archetypes inform the storyline, but IN
A LONELY PLACE does not employ a femme fatale figure. In an interesting
case of unintended intertextuality, at the police station Gray is informed
there is no more coffee, an announcement that Grahame's character from THE BIG HEAT (1953) surely would have
welcomed. Gray is introduced as a momentary distraction between Steele and
Atkinson, but the murder of Atkinson perversely leads to a romantic
relationship between Steele and Gray that only seems appropriate within the
context of the film noir. When it is
conveyed Gray can see into Steele's apartment but he cannot see into hers, it
would appear an inference could be made that Gray is a woman of mystery,
possibly dangerous, but in fact Steele is the enigma. Is it the romance with
Gray that has reignited his screenwriting proficiency, or was it the death of
Atkinson? It seems both women play necessary roles. In true film noir form, Steele, Gray and
Atkinson all become worse off for having met. Prior to encounters with those
women, Steele once was involved in a domestic abuse case that left past lover
Frances Randolph (Alix Talton) with a broken nose. Only the married woman
Sylvia Nicolai senses the danger of Steele quickly.
With
each viewing of IN A LONELY PLACE, I
become more convinced this is one of Bogart's best performances. Like Captain
Lochner, I initially had a hard time getting past the cynical side of Steele,
hardly the most likable of men portrayed by Bogart. But today I connect more
with the sadness of Steele, his vulnerability, his isolation and his bitter
resentment of a studio system that works best with escapist entertainment meant
to appeal to everyone. Essentially the same theme that pits art against
entertainment accents the same year's NIGHT
AND THE CITY, but the difference is the featured protagonist of that film
only pretends to care about art insofar as he might profit from it. Steele
undyingly believes in the importance of substance over style. Never does IN A LONELY PLACE venture onto the
grounds of a studio, as if to emphasize Steele's distance from everything a
studio represents. His principles ultimately may put an end to his quasi
blacklisting, but only at the cost of any foreseeable future with Gray, or
anybody else for that matter. Without realizing how correct he is, Lippman
nails it when he says, "If Dix has success he doesn't need anything
else." No doubt Steele would have empathized with SUNSET BOULEVARD's Norma Desmond.
Director
Ray was the ideal attachment to Bogart's turn as Steele. After working with Ray
on KNOCK ON ANY DOOR (1949), Bogart
called upon him to helm IN A LONELY
PLACE. Ironically, Ray's marriage to Grahame was ending at the time IN A LONELY PLACE was being filmed. One
wonders how much of the film's dark tone can be attributed to the fact Ray was
directing his soon-to-be ex. The following year, Ray would direct ON DANGEROUS GROUND (1951), again with
a volatile personality front and center, this time Robert Ryan as Jim Wilson.
Future Ray protagonists would struggle mightily to keep it together, i.e. Jim
Stark (James Dean) in REBEL WITHOUT A
CAUSE (1955) and Ed Avery (James Mason) in BIGGER THAN LIFE (1956).
Though
not a box office smash during its original theatrical run, IN A LONELY PLACE always has been well regarded by film critics.
This new 2K digital restoration from The Criterion Collection was generated
from a new 35mm fine grain master positive and pleases the eye. Framed at the
original theatrical scope of 1.33:1, the Blu-ray version is an obvious must-buy
for any self-respecting noir
aficionado. The audio commentary track features film scholar Dana Polan,
professor of cinema studies at New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts
and author of IN A LONELY PLACE (BFI Film Classics, 1993). Recorded in 2015 for
The Criterion Collection, Polan eschews the typical biographical information in
favor of incredibly in-depth analysis. He builds a steady case for the film as
an exercise in surveillance, especially in terms of the Steele character being
monitored. People watch him, investigate him, try to get the upper hand. Polan
also discusses the film as a woman's picture, with the Gray character's fears
and anxieties of primary importance.
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| Criterion Collection Blu-ray |
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| Sony DVD |
Supplemental
material continues with I'M A STRANGER
HERE MYSELF: A PORTRAIT OF NICHOLAS RAY
(1975), a condensed version (40m 33s) of the documentary feature devoted to the
filmmaker at work on WE CAN'T GO HOME
AGAIN (1973). Named after the working title of every Ray film, I'M A STRANGER HERE MYSELF reviews Ray's
emergence in the NY theater arena, where he was heavily influenced by Elia Kazan
and John Houseman. Discouraged by studio meddling and in poor health, Ray was
mostly absent from the movie world from the mid 1960s through the early 1970s.
The director's passion for his art is apparent during a heated discussion
between Ray and actress Leslie Levinson. Ray frequently spoke with a cigarette
hanging out of his mouth, as Bogart often did. The director confirms he had
filmed an alternate ending to IN A
LONELY PLACE in which Steele finishes his screenplay in the same breath as
his murder of Gray, but the conclusion of the film that printed was improvised.
Also
unique to this Criterion edition is an interview (16m 40s) with Gloria Grahame
Hallward biographer Vincent Curcio, author of SUICIDE BLONDE: THE LIFE OF GLORIA
GRAHAME (1989). It was Grahame's breakthrough performance in IN A LONELY PLACE that led to roles in
other major productions, i.e. SUDDEN
FEAR (1952), THE BAD AND THE
BEAUTIFUL (1952), THE BIG HEAT.
Curcio contends Grahame handled the publicity element of her career well,
despite her rocky marriages. While married to Nicholas Ray, Grahame was forced
to foot the bill for her husband's addiction to gambling, alcohol and drugs.
Whatever the couple had together disintegrated when Grahame began an affair
with Ray's son Anthony, who was just 13 at the time! Amazingly, that news item
was kept from the public. Like Bogart, sadly Grahame would reach only 57 years
or age.
Ported
from the DVD released through Sony Pictures Home Entertainment in 2003 is the
excellent featurette "IN A LONELY
PLACE: Revisited" (20m 23s)
with filmmaker Curtis Hanson (L.A.
CONFIDENTIAL), who reveals some of the profound differences between the
source material and film as engineered by screenwriter Andrew Solt and Ray, who
in essence do the same thing to the original novel by Dorothy B. Hughes that
Steele does with his source material:
create a work of art that stands on its own, with only a tangential
connection to the original material, which in the Hughes novel involved a
psychosexual killer. In light of the powerful film that was crafted, IN A LONELY PLACE is one of many great
films that emerged despite, or perhaps because of, the stifling production code
that self-policed Hollywood content.
In her
booklet essay, critic Imogen Sara Smith makes a very good point that director
of photography Burnett Guffey (THE
RECKLESS MOMENT [1949], NIGHTFALL
[1957]) favors shades of gray over the sort of high contrast compositions often
associated with film noir. Indeed the
film devotes a lot of time to gray areas, despite an outcome that is purely
black and white.
Also of
interest is a radio adaptation (59m 56s) of the original Dorothy B. Hughes
novel that originally aired March 6th, 1948 as episode #287 of the
CBS radio series SUSPENSE. The program features the voice of Robert Montgomery
(RIDE THE PINK HORSE [1947]) and differs
radically from the famous film that would follow. Also selectable is a
theatrical trailer (2m 27s).
