"In a Lonely Place" is a superb example of the mature Hollywood studio system at the top of its form. Photographed with masterful economy by Burnett Guffey ("Knock on Any Door," "Bonnie and Clyde"), it understands space and uses the apartments across the courtyard to visualize the emotional relationship between Dixon and Laurel. Visible to each other, dependent on each other, they never officially move in together but remain enclosed, and no matter what they say, apart. Notice the way Guffey focuses light on Bogart's eyes during a frightening speech when he imagines how Mildred was murdered.
"You know, Miss Gray," he says, "you're one up on me. You can see into my apartment but I can't see into yours."
"I promise you, I won't take advantage of it."
"I would, if it were the other way around."
Bogart is so good at playing vulnerable men. It's strange he has an enduring image as a tough guy. It would be more accurate to say he was tempered by experience. A decade before this film, in "Casablanca," he was already the man drinking alone late at night, afraid of hearing an old song.
About Grahame's characters there was often a doomed quality. She and Lee Marvin had an iconic scene in "The Big Heat" (1953) when he threw a pot of boiling coffee in her face. In "It's a Wonderful Life" (1946), she plays the grown-up Violet, who in the nightmare sequence, becomes a prostitute. She won an Oscar for "The Bad and the Beautiful" (1952), playing an actress who hates the producer who betrayed her. And she gained the unfortunate nickname "the can't say no girl" after performing that song in "Oklahoma!" (1955).
If there is one key element of film noir, it is the flawed hero. That, usually joined with a distinctive visual style and tone, defines the genre. The hero is sympathetic but weak, often haunted by mistakes in the past or fatally tempted by greed or lust. He is likely to discover himself capable of evil he had never dreamed of, and is consumed by guilt and fear.
Bogart embodies this noir quality flawlessly in "In a Lonely Place." He plays a good man with a hot temper who can fly into a rage when he drinks. This gives Dixon a Jekyll and Hyde quality that Laurel awakens to, leading to later scenes of terror. The monster inhabiting him is an acting-out of self-loathing, which infects his success and dooms his happiness. He foresees his fate when he quotes to her a line just written in his new screenplay: "I was born when you kissed me. I died when you left me. I lived a few weeks while you loved me."
Also in my Great Movies collection: "Rebel Without a Cause," "Casablanca," "Treasure of the Sierra Madre," "It's a Wonderful Life" and "The Big Heat."
Written by Kim Morgan, edited by Matt Zoller Seitz, an excellent video essay on "In a Lonely Place":
http://bit.ly/9nbNx
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