In a Lonely Place

Rating:
Summary: Can't get any better than this
Review: This is my favourite film of all time. It has it all - doomed romance, great dialogue, action, suspicion. This is a great example of a classic film that no one has heard of. Rebel without a Cause is boring after In a Lonely Place.

Rating:
Summary: Great direction, great acting!
Review: This is one of those "small" films that get pushed aside in an actor's or director's body of work, and it deserves to be right at the top of both Bogart's and Nicholas Ray's best films.

Ray's direction is brilliant--use of light and shadows is great, and the pacing keeps you right on the edge of your seat.

Bogart gives probably one of the best (if not the best) performances of his career, and Gloria Grahame matches him. The two of them play off of each other brilliantly.

One of the "film noir" classics, and contains one of the most memorable quotes from any film:

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

Rating:
Summary: Bogey loses his temper.
Review: This is what I'd call a sleeper; a good movie that "nobody's" heard of. Bogey has a real problem with his temper in this one.

Rating:
Summary: Bogie's Best
Review: This movie contains by far Bogie's best performance. Graham is also a wonderful, sultry match for him. If you love Bogart this is a must!

Rating:
Summary: A diamond in the rough--the very rough
Review: This unusual noir film has acquired an impressive reputation, mostly because of its distinctiveness and its blending of one of the most iconic of Hollywood actors (Humphrey Bogart) with one of the most intensely personal of Hollywood directors (Nicholas Ray). Adapted from a pulp novel about a serial killer, the film veers widely from its original source: the murder mystery that sets it off fades very quickly to the background, as the film becomes much more about the volatile relationship between the abusive but romantic screenwriter played by Bogart and the woman he loves (Gloria Grahame, in a very fine performance that makes much of her odd combination of flowerlike beauty and tough will). The film's searching exploration of raw emotions combined with its complex use of mise-en-scene only partially obscures the fact that Bogart's performance is quite erratic. Although believably incensed in the final scene, he seems too bored and tired to be credible driving his car at high speed in a fury or beating up a star football player. Moreover, the initial scenes with Bogart and the murder victim seem from another movie altogether, and you feel cheated when the likeable murder victim turns out to be so irrelevant to the story. This DVD version has a sometimes illuminating, sometimes fatuous short starring Curtis Hanson providing commentary on the film.

Rating:
Summary: "He isn't quite normal."
Review: When he meets his agent in a club to discuss a new project, screenwriter Dixon Steele (Humphrey Bogart) hasn't had a hit in years. While there, Steele picks up a chatty hatcheck girl who agrees to go home with him, but the next day she's found murdered. Steele's anti-social violent history makes him the prime suspect, but then a neighbour, Laurel Grey (Gloria Grahame) provides Steele with an airtight alibi. Laurel and Dixon Steele are attracted to one another, and the murder investigation throws them together. Inevitably, they fall in love. Their new relationship is tested to the limits as the investigation continues.

This is a great role for Humphrey Bogart. We all have our favourite Bogart film (mine is "The Treasure of the Sierra Madre"), but the role of Dixon Steele allows Bogart to play with the elements of anti-social behaviour--he often plays a loner, but as Dixon Steele, he's more than that. His reaction to the murder of the hatcheck girl is rather peculiar, and this, naturally, makes him the perfect suspect. There's a side of Steele that dwells on evil possibilities--perhaps it's just the writer in him. However, as Steele--the prime suspect, Bogart carries emotional apathy to new depths. Laurel Gray is not Gloria Grahame's best role (see "The Big Heat") --in fact, she's underused here, and the focus is squarely on Bogart. Gloria Grahame was married to director Nicholas Ray during the filming, and this is her first starring role. They were divorced amidst scandal shortly after the film. Bogart and Grahame fans (and I'm a fan of both) will enjoy this film very much. It's not one of Bogart's better-known roles, and that's a shame. The film is based on the book "In a Lonely Place" by Dorothy B. Hughes--displacedhuman

Rating:
Summary: A Lost Classic
Review: Where has this been all these years? "I was born when she kissed me, I died when she left me, I lived a few weeks while she loved me."