Rating: 
Summary: Dark, angry Bogart in a noir classic
Review: "In a Lonely Place" is usually considered a classic example of film noir, although-as other reviewers have pointed out-- it doesn't completely fit the mold. It has much of the darkness and violence typical of the genre, but the main female character(Laurel Gray) is less a classic femme fatale than an ordinary woman who has fallen in love with the wrong man (Dixon Steele, a screen writer whose career is on the skids). Although the background plot of the movie is about a murder investigation with the Steele as the prime suspect (he's innocent), its major focus is really on the man's psychology and the negative impact of his violent streak on those around him. Bogart is perfect as Dixon Steele, the screen writer with what would now be called "anger management problems." His screen presence oozes with the dangerousness that lies under his character's surface. Gloria Grahame plays Laurel as a basically sweet women who finds herself increasingly uneasy and eventually terrified of her lover's potential for violence. The issue of domestic abuse is never explicitly raised, but it's implicit in Laurel's fear of Steele's dangerous side. The tension builds, the relationship collapses, and in the bittersweet end, both lovers are left in a "lonely place" without each other. This film was based on a 1947 novel of the same name written by Dorothy Hughes. The novel is a classic example of hard-boiled pulp fiction. Dark as the movie is, the original novel is much darker. In the film version, Steele is a deeply flawed man, but one capable of love as well. In the novel, he's a twisted serial killer with no redeeming features. It's interesting to compare the book and the movie. Even given Bogart's penchant for tough guy roles, it's easy to understand why so many changes were made. Both versions are good, and both are concerned with the violent nature of the main character, but they're really two different works. Watch one, read the other--and enjoy both.
Rating:
Summary: Dark, angry Bogart in a noir classic
Review: "In a Lonely Place" is usually considered a classic example of film noir, although-as other reviewers have pointed out-- it doesn't completely fit the mold. It has much of the darkness and violence typical of the genre, but the main female character(Laurel Gray) is less a classic femme fatale than an ordinary woman who has fallen in love with the wrong man (Dixon Steele, a screen writer whose career is on the skids). Although the background plot of the movie is about a murder investigation with the Steele as the prime suspect (he's innocent), its major focus is really on the man's psychology and the negative impact of his violent streak on those around him. Bogart is perfect as Dixon Steele, the screen writer with what would now be called "anger management problems." His screen presence oozes with the dangerousness that lies under his character's surface. Gloria Grahame plays Laurel as a basically sweet women who finds herself increasingly uneasy and eventually terrified of her lover's potential for violence. The issue of domestic abuse is never explicitly raised, but it's implicit in Laurel's fear of Steele's dangerous side. The tension builds, the relationship collapses, and in the bittersweet end, both lovers are left in a "lonely place" without each other. This film was based on a 1947 novel of the same name written by Dorothy Hughes. The novel is a classic example of hard-boiled pulp fiction. Dark as the movie is, the original novel is much darker. In the film version, Steele is a deeply flawed man, but one capable of love as well. In the novel, he's a twisted serial killer with no redeeming features. It's interesting to compare the book and the movie. Even given Bogart's penchant for tough guy roles, it's easy to understand why so many changes were made. Both versions are good, and both are concerned with the violent nature of the main character, but they're really two different works. Watch one, read the other--and enjoy both.
Rating:
Summary: An Unpredictable Pseudo-Noir
Review: "In a Lonely Place" is widely considered to be one of the best of the film noir genre, but I can't quite bring myself to give it noir status. It certainly has the ambiguity, sense of paranoia and seedy underworld setting of the standard noir, but it's also lacking in a few crucial elements that in my opinion give a film noir its noir: the femme fatale, the sense of underlying corruption. When Gloria Grahame first slinks her away across the screen, you think "Ah ha! Here's our femme fatale." But she's not, and this is only one instance of the way this film unpredictably turns the audience's expectations upside down. The film is very unusual in the way it tells its story. Bogart plays a struggling screen writer suspected of murdering a young, star-struck girl. We know he hasn't done it, and we expect the film to be about the unraveling of the mystery surrounding her death in Bogie's attempts to prove his innocence. But that's not at all what we get. The murder is forgotten, never very important to begin with, and the film settles into a character study of Bogie, not concerned so much with whether or not he committed a murder but rather with whether or not he has the CAPACITY to commit murder. The cool, unflappable persona that greets us at the beginning of the movie (the Bogie we're used to), deteriorates into a paranoid, jealous, nearly psychotic loner by the film's end, and Gloria Grahame (who we early on suspected of having some devious aims) becomes our chief object of concern. The movie is all over the place in a good way, truly surprising and fresh. The title of course refers to the lonely place of the interior psyche, and the demons that can haunt a man who has too much time with himself. Bogie spends so much time in the imaginary worlds he creates for his screenplays, that he can't seem to deal any longer with the reality of the material world around him, or maintain relationships that don't rely on his bullying his way into getting what he wants. And the saddest thing is that he knows this about himself. It's a great display of acting on Bogie's part and a neat deconstruction of the Bogie screen persona. Enjoy. Grade: A-
Rating: 
Summary: LONELY PLACE FOR CLASSICS AT COLUMBIA-TRISTAR
Review: "A Lonely Place" is one of those great film noirs that haunts you once you've seen it. Bogart is a screenwriter with a terrible temper, whose latest one night stand turns up dead with him as the prime suspect. Gloria Grahame is Bogie's neighbour and the only one to believe him innocent. But is he really?
I'm not sure what the term "complete digital restoration" means to all of you reading this. When I think in those terms I see flashes of Paramount's "Sunset Blvd." or Warner's "Mildred Pierce". But when Columbia uses it, as they do in their 'restoration snippet trailer' that's included on this disc, they merely mean that they've digitally repaired all the rips and tears in the original camera negative. That's not complete and it's not even close to what a film like "In A Lonely Place needs. The film throughout is riddled with excessive film grain, dirt, scratches and, on occasion, aliasing and shimmering of fine details. Night scenes are the worst, showing signs of rear projection photography that is extremely grainy and sometimes even out of focus. Indoor and day scenes seen to be the best represented. But this is a film noir. Having said that, most of the action takes place at night.
We get a feeble "making of" featurette and a really lousy "The Bogart Collection" montage that shows us stills from all the films Bogie made at Columbia, but not a single film clip, presumably because the footage is just so bad in terms of its deterioration of original camera negative film stock. It's such a shame that the regime at Columbia responsible for their early efforts in the B&W classics dept. has either been fired or quit, as their exemplory efforts are no where to be found on the studio's recent batch of lack luster transfers.
As long as we're on the subject of poor quality from the studio, I don't recommend that anyone invest their time or money in the following titles as well - Dead Reckoning, The Awful Truth, Once Upon A Time or Talk of the Town. Sorry I don't have better news. Write the studio in protest and for heaven's sake - DON'T BUY!
Rating:
Summary: An Unpredictable Pseudo-Noir
Review: "In a Lonely Place" is widely considered to be one of the best of the film noir genre, but I can't quite bring myself to give it noir status. It certainly has the ambiguity, sense of paranoia and seedy underworld setting of the standard noir, but it's also lacking in a few crucial elements that in my opinion give a film noir its noir: the femme fatale, the sense of underlying corruption. When Gloria Grahame first slinks her away across the screen, you think "Ah ha! Here's our femme fatale." But she's not, and this is only one instance of the way this film unpredictably turns the audience's expectations upside down. The film is very unusual in the way it tells its story. Bogart plays a struggling screen writer suspected of murdering a young, star-struck girl. We know he hasn't done it, and we expect the film to be about the unraveling of the mystery surrounding her death in Bogie's attempts to prove his innocence. But that's not at all what we get. The murder is forgotten, never very important to begin with, and the film settles into a character study of Bogie, not concerned so much with whether or not he committed a murder but rather with whether or not he has the CAPACITY to commit murder. The cool, unflappable persona that greets us at the beginning of the movie (the Bogie we're used to), deteriorates into a paranoid, jealous, nearly psychotic loner by the film's end, and Gloria Grahame (who we early on suspected of having some devious aims) becomes our chief object of concern. The movie is all over the place in a good way, truly surprising and fresh. The title of course refers to the lonely place of the interior psyche, and the demons that can haunt a man who has too much time with himself. Bogie spends so much time in the imaginary worlds he creates for his screenplays, that he can't seem to deal any longer with the reality of the material world around him, or maintain relationships that don't rely on his bullying his way into getting what he wants. And the saddest thing is that he knows this about himself. It's a great display of acting on Bogie's part and a neat deconstruction of the Bogie screen persona. Enjoy. Grade: A-
Rating:
Summary: An Unpredictable Pseudo-Noir
Review: "In a Lonely Place" is widely considered to be one of the best of the film noir genre, but I can't quite bring myself to give it noir status. It certainly has the ambiguity, sense of paranoia and seedy underworld setting of the standard noir, but it's also lacking in a few crucial elements that in my opinion give a film noir its noir: the femme fatale, the sense of underlying corruption. When Gloria Grahame first slinks her away across the screen, you think "Ah ha! Here's our femme fatale." But she's not, and this is only one instance of the way this film unpredictably turns the audience's expectations upside down. The film is very unusual in the way it tells its story. Bogart plays a struggling screen writer suspected of murdering a young, star-struck girl. We know he hasn't done it, and we expect the film to be about the unraveling of the mystery surrounding her death in Bogie's attempts to prove his innocence. But that's not at all what we get. The murder is forgotten, never very important to begin with, and the film settles into a character study of Bogie, not concerned so much with whether or not he committed a murder but rather with whether or not he has the CAPACITY to commit murder. The cool, unflappable persona that greets us at the beginning of the movie (the Bogie we're used to), deteriorates into a paranoid, jealous, nearly psychotic loner by the film's end, and Gloria Grahame (who we early on suspected of having some devious aims) becomes our chief object of concern. The movie is all over the place in a good way, truly surprising and fresh. The title of course refers to the lonely place of the interior psyche, and the demons that can haunt a man who has too much time with himself. Bogie spends so much time in the imaginary worlds he creates for his screenplays, that he can't seem to deal any longer with the reality of the material world around him, or maintain relationships that don't rely on his bullying his way into getting what he wants. And the saddest thing is that he knows this about himself. It's a great display of acting on Bogie's part and a neat deconstruction of the Bogie screen persona. Enjoy. Grade: A-
Rating: 
Summary: ONE OF RAY'S BEST
Review: Dix Steel is weary, tired yet still functioning in the town that created him and his kind.He's always had a short temper that has gotten him into trouble.The hip restaurant and bar where all the brass hang out, the shadowy streets and spanish style apartment complex in which the main characters live, haunts them and us, as a brutal murder hangs over the heads of a large cast of Hollywood characters. Dread and love and fate ring through this work.The director's wife, Gloria Grahame, is excellent next to Bogart, in one of his best film performances.A great, powerful film.
Rating:
Summary: DARK, BROODING HUMAN EMOTIONS....
Review: Excellent psychological noir drama about a cynical Hollywood screenwriter (Humphrey Bogart) with a disturbing violent streak who becomes a suspect in the brutal murder of a hat check girl from the club he frequents. His only alibi is Gloria Grahame, a starlet who's his neighbor in their apartment complex. She covers for him to the police even admitting that she likes his face. They begin a relationship and Grahame discovers his frightening violent tendencies. Now even she begins to doubt his innocence as well as fear for her own safety. Film crackles with cynicism and tension throughout and offers one of Bogart's best performances as the troubled writer struggling with his inner demons. Grahame is excellent in one of her first big roles before becoming the 50's film noir femme fatale she later did. Ironically, the film was directed by the great Nicholas Ray whose marriage to Grahame was falling apart at the time. This could explain why it has a bleak, gloomy feel to it and the two leads are such tormented characters who are powerless over their destinies. A must see, a must on DVD and a must have for those who know what Bogart could do in a role like this, for fans of Grahame and especially for those who are familiar with Nicholas Ray. A potent, adult film that's an underrated and overlooked classic.
Rating:
Summary: A DEEPLY MOVING FILM!
Review: Filmed in 1950, this film is brilliantly directed by Nicholas Ray. Its production company, Santana Productions, was Bogart's own (Santana was the name of his yawl), which he started in 1948 and sold to Columbia Pictures in 1954, the problem being that his company simply couldn't outbid the large studios for properties he wanted, i.e., Dead End and The Detective Story (some of Santana's films included Knock on Any Door, Tokyo Joe and Sirocco, which Bogart himself called "a stinker"). Eric Lax, the definitive biographer of Humphrey Bogart, believes that he was drawn to this role because he could so closely identify with the character's inner turmoil, problems with women, and a rocky relationship with the ups and downs of the film industry itself. The character he plays is also a heavy drinker. Perhaps because of the similarities, and because Bogart was so greatly talented, his performance in this film leaves one in awe. It is wide and deep, cruel and unbelievably tender, and very, very moving. Gloria Grahame gives unquestionably the best performance of her career. The role was to go to Lauren Bacall, but Warner Brothers refused to lend her to Santana Productions for the film. Though I admire Bacall's early work, I am glad we got Grahame with her flower-like fragility. It is a murder mystery, but more it is an in-depth character study and even a life study. Dix (Bogart's character) is full of rage which he has for years refused to confront. Laurel (Grahame's character) is lost. Both her film career and her search for a meaningful love are illusive at best. They genuinely fall deeply in love. Was she not strong enough? Was he not brave enough? We see what could have been, and are left with what will never be. My great compliments to Art Smith, whom I consider to be the greatest character actor of his time (he played the psychiatrist in Mr. Peabody and the Mermaid, one of William Powell's later films). The scene in which he is violated is a great moment in film. Hats off to a deeply moving film, brutally honest and perfectly executed, each performance being a gem of its own.
Rating:
Summary: Disturbing, Important Film
Review: 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, beneath the surface 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. To his credit, Ray never takes the easy way out of having Bogart turn monster on her. You care inordinately about the characters, hoping hard (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 rarity. The shadows suffusing this excellent film come not from UFA-influenced lighting but from the Black Dahlia murder, the HUAC hearings, the death throes of old Hollywood & the moral and spiritual detachment of postwar American life. But most of all, they're projected from within the characters themselves. Grahame and Ray's own real-life deteriorating relationship formed the template for the doomed lovers, and for them, this film is an act of great courage. For his part, Bogart (the star and executive producer) takes elements of all his previous romantic loners and blends them with the harsh, sour pigments of Fred C Dobbs, running the risk of audience rejection. His performance is unflinchingly honest, among his best work ever. See this movie.
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