In a Lonely Place
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Movie Reviews of In a Lonely Place
Movie Review: Intelligent noir
Summary: 5 Stars
The Bottom Line:
If you love the twisted morality and dark shadows of film-noir but are tired of watching private detectives follow convoluted plots, check out In a Lonely Place, a 1950 Bogart picture about a woman who starts to wonder if her boyfriend is capable of murder; with a very good Bogart in the lead and a brief 94-minute running time, In a Lonely Place is a fine example of the genre.
3.5/4
Movie Review: Fantastic!
Summary: 5 Stars
I began watching this movie on Turner Classic Movies. I wasn't able to see the end and just had to see the climax! I went online at Amazon to purchase it. I found it a great movie of its era--or any era. Most unusual. Humphrey Bogart and Gloria Graham were both perfect in their starring roles. The other cast members were also excellent. You must see it!Movie Review: In a Lonely Place
Summary: 5 Stars
This overlooked drama defines what a great whodunit should be. The anger within Bogarts character melds perfectly with the actors own dark persona. And Grahame is always fascinating to watch, for her unique allure and nuanced acting. Probing, literate and atmospheric, the Nicholas Ray way.Movie Review: "In A Lonely Place (1950) ... Bogart & Grahame ... Nicholas Ray (Director) (2003)"
Summary: 4 Stars
Columbia Pictures presents "IN A LONELY PLACE" (1950) (94 min/B&W) -- Starring Humphrey Bogart, Gloria Grahame, Frank Lovejoy, Carl Benton Reid & Art Smith
Directed by Nicholas Ray
Screenwriter Dixon Steele, faced with the odious task of scripting a trashy bestseller, has hat-check girl Mildred Atkinson tell him the story in her own words. Later that night, Mildred is murdered and Steele is a prime suspect; his record of belligerence when angry and his macabre sense of humor tell against him. Fortunately, lovely neighbor Laurel Gray gives him an alibi. Laurel proves to be just what Steele needed, and their friendship ripens into love. Will suspicion, doubt, and Steele's inner demons come between them?
Despite the fact that the plot is ostensibly a 'did he do it?' crime story, this is largely inconsequential to the psychological character and relationship study that is the central concern of the film. The script is smart, witty and cynical, just like a typical Bogart character. But in this film Bogart plays probably his darkest character. The cynical, darker aspects of this film just go to highlight how few contemporary films are prepared to be so bleak.
In some of the scenes with Gloria Grahame he's at his smooth, wisecracking, slightly irritable best, but in the moments where the anger and the fog of despair descends he is a more threatening character than in any of his other leading man roles.
If you like a cracking script with sharp performances, with all kinds of deep psychological observations on love and loneliness to be read into it, in the best noir tradition, this is the film for you.
"In A Lonely Place" could be director Nicholas Ray's best. It's a fascinating movie that mixes drama, suspense and romance in a very interesting way. You could call it Noir I suppose, but it's a very difficult movie to tie down.
Powerful Bogie noir - often described as one of his best (now that's saying something!)
BIOS:
1. Nicholas Ray [aka: Raymond Nicholas Kienzle] [Director]
Date of Birth: 7 August 1911 - Galesville, Wisconsin
Date of Death: 16 June 1979 - New York City, New York
2. Humphrey Bogart [aka: Humphrey DeForest Bogart]
Date of Birth: 25 December 1899 - New York City, New York
Date of Death: 14 January 1957 - Los Angeles, California
3. Gloria Grahame [aka: Gloria Hallward]
Date of Birth: 28 November 1923 - Los Angeles, California
Date of Death: 5 October 1981 - New York City, New York
4. Frank Lovejoy
Date of Birth: 28 March 1912 - The Bronx, New York
Date of Death: 2 October 1962 - New York City, New York
Mr. Jim's Ratings:
Quality of Picture & Sound: 4 Stars
Performance: 5 Stars
Story & Screenplay: 4 Stars
Overall: 4 Stars [Original Music, Cinematography & Film Editing]
Total Time: 94 min on DVD ~ Columbia Pictures ~ (03/18/2003)
Movie Review: Not perfect, but effective and impressive
Summary: 4 Stars
This is by no stretch neither one of Bogart's best nor one of his worse films. In the late 1940s and 1950s, as Bogart began to break away from Warner Brothers and do more independent films, he began more and more to explore a greater variety of roles. In this one, he plays a lawyer who managed to break out of the rough and nasty neighborhood where he grew up, and a young tough who has been unable to break out and has gotten himself into a string of bad situations. The young thug is played by John Derek, who would go on to appear in a number of films (such as ALL THE KINGS MEN and THE TEN COMMANDMENTS, in which he would play Joshua) before becoming a photographer and director an husband of a number of famed (and similar looking) beauties, including Ursala Andress, Linda Evans, and Bo Derek). Given the utterly horrible movies he directed starring Bo Derek, it was quite a nice surprise to see what a nice job he does in this film. He was not merely a pretty face; he had some talent.
Bogart managed to excel in every movie he was ever in, with only a few exceptions, like THE OKLAHOMA KID, a Western in which he played a Mexican bandit, complete with utterly unconvincing accent. Apart from that and a couple of other 1930s roles, Bogart managed to shine even when the rest of the movie was vile.
The problem with KNOCK ON ANY DOOR is twofold. One is the highly artificial script, in which much of the film is told in flashback in what is supposed to be the opening remarks at a trial. It is unbalancing to have so much of the film told in flashback at a moment in a trial when such personal remarks would have been inappropriate. As a result, the trial ends up feeling not so much like a trial as a parody of a trial. The second problem is that the movie is a bit heavy handed in its social commentary. That society can have a pervasive and overwhelming influence on the ultimate destiny of a young person had been developed in the late 19th century by people like Jane Addams, and had become commonplace in the following decades. Many films of the 1930s focused on the importance of providing kids with more positive social influences, like DEAD END and BOY'S TOWN. KNOCK ON ANY DOOR tries to get a lot of mileage out of an idea that was hardly new. During the heavier of the social commentary moments, I kept thinking of a line from Monty Python, when the Church Police arrest a young kid who had murdered a parson. Someone points out in the arrest that society was to blame. "We'll be arresting him [i.e., society] too."
Nonetheless, this is an interesting and effective film, though somewhat marred by social sentiment and some serious structural problems in the script.