Bogie On The Edge- Humphrey Bogart’s “In A Lonely Place” (1950)-A Film Review

DVD Review

By Sam Lowell  

In a Lonely Place, starring Humphrey Bogart, Gloria Grahame, directed by Nicolas Ray, 1950    

Not all noir is created equal and not all Bogie films (Humphrey Bogart of “don’t Bogart that joint” of blessed memory) are either. Although the film under review, In A Lonely Place,  an off-hand look at the frills and foibles of Hollywood back in the day when the studio bosses ran the show and ran everybody ragged is an acknowledged respectable example of the noir it does not pack the wallop of such vehicles as Sunset Boulevard and Out Of The Past. Moreover although some critics have claimed that Bogart’s acting as the troubled screenwriter Dixon Steele is among his best work for me the character of Steele does not hold a candle to his iconic roles as Captain Morgan in To Have And Have Not, Phillip Marlowe in The Big Sleep and Sam Spade in The Maltese Falcon.             

Here is what makes this a very good film and Bogie’s performance if not great then a good secondary effort. Dix Steele like a lot of guys went off to war during World War II which may have contributed to his lack of success as a screenwriter working the Hollywood rackets after the war. May have also contributed to his erratic and combustible behavior (maybe some heavy boozing too). Looking for some worthwhile project to write up his agent convinces him to do an screen adaptation of a book. He is skeptical, an attitude which is confirmed when a wannabe starlet cum hat check girl at his local gin mill hangout reads the book and tells him the outline of the plot. A stinker-no question (although the hat check girl was all dreamy-eyed about it). The problem is that the hat check girl told him the story line after he had cajoled her into telling him about the plot in his apartment (after declaring no romantic intension). Well that is not really the problem if you thing about it but the fact that after Dix gave her cab fare home she wound up very dead in some canyon ditch the next morning.             

Enter prime suspect Dix. It all adds up. His violent behavior shown a couple of times at the gin mill and out on the mean Hollywood streets , far-fetched story of the girl in his place just to recite a plotline, and his ungentlemanly conduct of not seeing her to the cab after midnight. Even I had him figured for the fall-for a while. To the rescue though comes one B-film starlet, Lauren, played by real life B-movie queen Gloria Grahame (and really a very good actor who never got the juicy roles she deserved) who lived in an adjacent apartment and who claimed she had seen Dix at his place at the time of the murder. Thanks, babe. Naturally besides the thanks Dix figured to make a big play for the good-looking Lauren who seemed interested in return. They start up what became a tempestuous love affair which on the positive end has Dix working like seven banshees on some real writing.

On the negative side though the coppers, including a guy who served under Dix in the war, have him targeted as the fall guy for all the obvious reasons mentioned before. Dix falls down though, can’t take the pressure, had recurring bouts of violent behavior which only added fuel to the fire of the coppers’ suspicion of his involvement in the hat check girl murder. That affected Lauren who became rightfully afraid of Dix and in the end ran out on him after he puts his hands on her. Too late, the “in a lonely place” too late Dix and Lauren find out from the coppers that the hat check girl’s jealous boyfriend had confessed to the murder. So it goes.