Reading, Writing, Romance And Rage

With the Writer's Strike marching on, I'm revisiting one of my favorite pictures about a Hollywood screenwriter -- Nicholas Ray's masterpiece, In a Lonely Place.

Nicholas Ray's In a Lonely Place is one of the most heartbreaking love stories ever committed to film. It's certainly one of the most poignant pictures (violently poignant at times) within the canon of filmn noir, a genre haunted by doomed love.

Noir love -- the kind that causes characters to throw that "Baby I don't care" caution to the wind -- is frequently a cynical fancy that won't survive the angst and ugliness inside the man or outside the world. Its happiness is typically intense, but brief. Love or lust often motivates action in noir, particularly via a femme fatale (as in Double Indemnity or Out of the Past). But it also holds up a mirror to myriad themes, largely existential, that hang over characters with profound malaise.

Ray approaches the torments of Camus and Sartre with In a Lonely Place (1950) showing, not only the delicacy of true love, but the delicacy of creativity, violence, trust, and a person's own position in an often ugly, alienating world and the nausea it creates. Here, that shabby world is Hollywood, where screenwriter Dixon Steele (Humphrey Bogart) lives a lonely, stressed-out life while struggling to create a bankable screenplay. He's talented, but troubled and disdainful. As he eats at his haunt, Paul's Restaurant, Dixon sneers at a colleague working for the "popcorn business," but in turn punches a hotshot for cruelly taunting a sad, alcoholic, washed-up screen actor. Immediately, we recognize Dixon as a humanist -- sympathetic, but deeply cynical. Given the job to adapt a novel, he invites a hatcheck girl (Martha Stewart) who's read the popular book to his Spanish-style apartment for help (an apartment modeled on Ray's own past residence). She's attractive, and he's probably interested in something more than mere adaptation, but she rattles on insufferably and Dixon sends her away in a taxi.

That same night she's found on the side of a road, murdered. With Dixon's reputation for abuse, he becomes a prime suspect. But struggling actress Laurel Gray (the perfectly cast Gloria Grahame), a new neighbor in his complex, witnessed the young woman leaving Dixon's place. She becomes his alibi, and soon his lover. Dixon and Laurel's chemistry in the police station is subtly thrilling and sexy, but distinct from the usual noir fireworks -- it almost looks healthy. When police ask Laurel why she noticed her neighbor's actions, she answers bluntly "Because he looked interesting. I liked his face." And when Dixon catches up to her at the complex, he admits that when meeting her "I said to myself, there she is. The one who's different. She's not coy or cute or corny." Its easy to see these two are perfect for each other, the sharp, world-weary but sunny actress, and the brooding intellect who's probably surprised he actually likes a woman in this town. Wounded, but nourishing each other with their very adult, no-nonsense love, Dixon begins writing again with Laurel feeding him, fluffing his pillows, and typing — "for love," as she says.

But their bliss can't last, even with this seemingly sturdy pair of survivors. Dixon can't control his inherent rage, which becomes so bad that Laurel (understandably, especially considering the film's original ending, which Ray didn't like and removed) begins to suspect her lover. And the more she distrusts him, the worse his anger fumes. No one, not even a detective who defends Dixon as "superior" and "an exciting guy," wants to believe the writer is a sociopath.

But is he a sociopath? Certainly his rage and frequently selfish behavour are troublesome but Dixon's flashes of tenderness betray a clear definition. And yet Ray's film leads everyone (including the viewer) to wonder if he really did kill that hatcheck girl. We don't want him to be guilty, we want the romance to work out, and we believe (perhaps, delusionally) there's hope for Dixon -- hence, the tragedy that concludes the film. Ray, whose pictures like Rebel Without a Cause, Bigger Than Life, and On Dangerous Ground all contemplate a man's lonely, often horrifying position in his world, is in archetypal mode with In a Lonely Place. Much like the protagonists in Ray's other films, Dixon is not a loser (like so many characters in noir), but rather a talent who would be productive if not for the obstacles in his way, including his own neurotic, repressed, enraged self.

Ray wisely worked with Bogart, who plays Dixon with a genuine rawness, mixing toughness and vulnerability, self-loathing and romanticism, contempt and warmth in one compelling stew of a man. When he recites a line from his script to Laurel ("I was born when she kissed me. I died when she left me. I lived a few weeks while she loved me.") we recognize it as not only the film's motif, but also exactly what we find attractive about Bogart. And yet the line, though true, is as laden with irony as the iconic image of Bogart himself, who exposes a rabid underbelly that's both frightening and unbearably sad. One of Ray's finest pictures, In a Lonely Place is also Bogart's greatest performance on film.

Comments

[Steve-O]

Just beautiful. Bogie was fantastic in this one - his best performance. Heartbreaking and sad. I don't think I could stand watching it right now but man, what a film.

[Adam R]

Great post, Kim. While not my favorite Bogie film, I agree that it's his best performance. It's scary to think what the WGA strike would have done to Dixon Steele!

[films noir]

An interesting analysis, but not quite accurate and hardly impartial. You say re the hat-check girl:

"She's attractive, and he's probably interested in something more than mere adaptation, but she rattles on insufferably and Dixon sends her away in a taxi."

As I have said elsewhere: Dixon is not only lonely, torn, and alienated, but amoral in his self-obsession. He does not sender here away in a taxi but leaves the hat-check girl to find her own cab alone late at night on the streets of LA, and so is partly responsible for what happens to her. When he learns of her murder the next morning, he cannot connect emotionally with the event - even when he is shown graphics photos of the crime scene - and he has no real remorse. As an afterthought he callously orders some flowers to be sent to the girl’s home, but can’t be bothered to find out the address himself.

[Katel]

fave bogie pictures:
1. Maltese Falcon
2. To have and to have not
3. Treasure of Sierra Madre
4. African Queen
5. Sabrina
6. In a lonely place

[C.K. Dexter Haven]

I have to ask if the commenter films noir saw the same In a Lonely Place as Kim and me. I'm unable to judge Kim's partiality, but she's quite accurate. Dixon brings home Mildred Atkinson so he won't have to read the book he's been tasked to review by the studio. And if a little post-book report sex transpires, so much the better. But he quickly discovers he's into neither the book nor the girl. Without spoiling the movie, his not walking her a few feet to the cab stand hardly makes him guilty. Plus, Dixon has issues with authority figures, be they in the entertainment business or law enforcement. It's not that he doesn't have remorse. It's that he won't reveal his remorse to them. His ordering of flowers for the dead girl shows his tenderness, not his callousness.

[Ilsa Lund]

Wow--I'm surprised at the amount of comments; when this essay was originally posted there were only two comments; me and someone else. Possibly due to the writers' strike, maybe because it was included in the National Film Registry, I don't know, but I'm so happy that this extraordinary film is finally getting the recognition it so fully deserves.

This is a phenomenal film in so many respects, and I agree so fully with Kim about the doomed romance and Bogart's performance (it truly is his greatest achievement as an actor and I'll even say that his Oscar win for THE AFRICAN QUEEN was a consolidation prize for not being nominated here). As Curtis Hanson pointed out, Bogart was a big star and he could've chosen any film for any budget, but he chose to star and produce a low-budget one that showed him in an unsympathetic light both literally and figuratively. You see the scars on his face and the dark hair on his arms without an ounce of glamour or star treatment. As for his acting, fans almost unanimously choose TREASURE OF THE SIERRA MADRE as his best performance, but to me you could always tell that he was acting; his Dix Steele somehow feels personal. There's an absence of acting, and Bogart is so terrifyingly real and complex and pained you can't imagine anyone else inhabiting the role with the same gusto. A masterpiece performance.

[Pete Bogs]

your description of Dixon almost makes him sound as if he was the inspiration for Tom Waits' down and out persona... and the murdered hatcheck girl and mysterious neighbor have David Lynch, a la Mulholland Drive, written all over them... an intriguing combo I will have to check out!

[Fruity Bev]

Weren't Dixon's temper and mood issues loosley attributed to his war experiences? I recall seeing him as a PTSD case.

[Ilsa Lund]

To reply to Fruity Bev, though many viewers think that Dix's problems can be directly attributed to his war experiences. BUT there's a part where his agent tells Laurel that he's known Dix for 20 years and his violence is as a part of him as "the shape of his head or the color of his eyes." So while there's probably some disillusionment and haunted quality that came from the war (as a side note, Bogart played a WWII vet only a few years prior in KEY LARGO), Dix had problems even before it. This might frustrate some people, but I think that's the glory of the film: there are no flashback to a troubled childhood or combat duty; one can imagine he's been like his entire life. Nicholas Ray didn't want the movie to have all the answers or wrap up in a neat pink bow, because he didn't have the answers and knew that life doesn't end with a kiss at the end of the rainbow. All these qualities are what shape Dix to be the flawed, troubled, decent and kind person we see on-screen. His love and his anger come as a pair. You can take your chances, but buyer beware.

[Erich Kuersten]

Yeah, great post, Kim Morgan! "I was born when she kissed me..." I remember watching this film and seething with rage over how we're supposed to sympathize with Bogie's co-dependent and abusive protagonist. Ray forces the viewer into the role of ennabler, the battered wife explaining to her friends how he's he's really nice when he's not drinking-- it's the stress that makes him this way," because he's Bogart and we love him. I applaud SUNSET GUN for championing films like this and I STAND ALONE, dudes like Ike Turner, and fast cars. Kim bravely treads down dark hallways of art where few liberal arts educated males would dare to, kicking open every door and switching on the lights along her way so we can all follow and peer in with shock and awe.

[Tom Farrell]

Nick Ray spoke of how wrenchingly personal
IN A LONELY PLACE was for him to make in the 1974 documentary I'M A STRANGER HERE MYSELF,
which one can see in the French DVD release of Ray's THEY LIVE BY NIGHT, his directorial debut. For more information, read Bernard Eisenschitz's biography of Nicholas Ray.

[Ilsa Lund]

Tom Farrell is right that this was a very personal film to Nicholas Ray, and I'll tell it to those who can't get a hold on Eisenschitz's out-of-print biography or the French DVD; the biggest reason is that he was separating from his wife Gloria Grahame at the time of filming. The two had to keep it a secret for fear that he would be replaced (Ray pushed hard for Gloria to have the role because he knew she was right for it, and she had to sign a pre-production contract saying that she would obey his directions). Nobody suspected that they had separated, filming continued on smoothly, and both Ray and Grahame turned in their finest work.

Even the setting of Dix and Laurel's apartment complex was a replica of the same place where Ray lived in when he first came to Hollywood; as Richard von Busack once asked, What can one conclude about a man who shot a movie in a replica of his own house--and called that movie In a Lonely Place? If anyone is lucky enough to get their hands on Eisenschitz's biography, you'll know all too well just how sad and lonely Ray's life was. Lauren Bacall may have saved Bogart from his own "lonely place," but Gloria Grahame was not a Laurel in real-life. While Ray went on to make many great movies, his drug and alcohol-infused existence eventually took over his professional and personal life until his death in 1979.

[Steve-O]

The apartment complex in In a Lonely Place and Mulholland Drive could be exactaly the same place. Any time I watch either film I'm reminded of the other one. Not to mention they both tread the same Hollywood-writer ground.