In a Lonely Place

Plot synopsis:
Dixon "Dix" Steele (Humphrey Bogart) is a down-on-his-luck Hollywood screenwriter who has not had a hit, "since before the war." While driving to meet his agent, Mel Lippman (Art Smith), at a nightclub, Dix's explosive temper is revealed at a stoplight along the way in a confrontation with another motorist that almost becomes violent.
At the nightclub, Mel cajoles him to adapt a book for a movie. The hat-check girl, Mildred Atkinson (Martha Stewart), is engrossed in reading it and asks if she can finish, since she only has a few pages left. Dix has a second violent outburst when a young director bad-mouths Dix's friend Charlie (Robert Warwick), a washed-up actor.
Dix claims to be too tired to read the novel, so he asks Mildred to go home with him, ostensibly to explain the plot. As they enter the courtyard of his apartment, they pass a new tenant, Laurel Gray (Gloria Grahame). As soon as Mildred is convinced that Dix is not trying to seduce her, she describes the story, in the process confirming what he had suspected—the book is trash. He gives her cab fare to get home.
The next morning, he is awakened by an old army buddy, now a police detective, Brub Nicolai (Frank Lovejoy), who takes him downtown to be questioned by Captain Lochner (Carl Benton Reid). The coat check girl Mildred was murdered during the night and Dix is a suspect. Laurel is brought to the police station and confirms seeing the girl leave Dix's apartment alone and unharmed, but Lochner is still deeply suspicious. Although Dix shows no overt sympathy for the dead victim, on the way home from the police station, he anonymously sends her two dozen white roses.
When he gets home, Dix checks up on Laurel. He finds she is an aspiring actress with only a few low-budget films to her credit. They begin to fall in love; this invigorates Dix into going back to work with a vengeance, with Laurel assisting him, much to his agent's delight.
However, Dix behaves strangely. He says things that make his agent and Brub's wife Sylvia (Jeff Donnell) wonder if he did kill the girl. In addition, Lochner sows seeds of doubt in Laurel's mind, pointing out Dix's lengthy record of violent behavior. Dix becomes furiously irrational when he learns of it. He drives at high speed, with Laurel a terrified passenger, until they sideswipe another car. Nobody is hurt in the collision, but when the other driver accosts him, Dix beats him unconscious and is about to strike him with a large rock when Laurel stops him.
Laurel gets to the point where she cannot sleep without taking pills. Her distrust and fear of Dix are becoming too much for her. When he asks her to marry him, she accepts but only because she is too scared of what he might do if she refused. She makes a plane reservation and tells Mel she is leaving because she cannot take it anymore. Dix finds out and almost strangles her during a violent confrontation before he regains control.
Just then, the phone rings. It is Brub with good news: Mildred's boyfriend (named Henry Kesler, the same as the film's associate producer) has confessed to her murder. Tragically, it is too late to salvage Dix and Laurel's relationship.

Tags: violence, suspenseful, humor, murder, storytelling

Review:
Bogart and Grahame are a terrific team (she is the designing actress), but also good are Frank Lovejoy, Jeff Donnell (as his wife), Martha Stewart (no not that one) as the murder victim, Art Smith as the agent, and Robert Warwick (just wonderful) as the washed-up actor.
Humphrey Bogart plays a bitter, hard drinking and frequently violent screen writer who becomes a murder suspect when a young girl (Martha Stewart) is killed.
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.
In some of the scenes with Gloria Graeme 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.The cynical, darker aspects of this film just go to highlight how few contemporary films are prepared to be so bleak.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 moments of tenderness he shows to his alibi-turned-lover Laurel (an ethereal Gloria Grahame; imagine Hope Davis glammed-up for the 50s) alternate with fits of anger to turn their relationship into that of a tragic poem.In A Lonely Place is film noir that focuses on romance rather than crime.
A scorching performance from Bogey makes this film a real classic, his Dixon Steele one of the great screen characters.
In this more biting version of the plot of Hitchcock's suspense/comedy Suspicion, Bogart is a kind and loving screenwriter with a violent streak of temper waiting to break out and a taste for a drink or two, wooing Gloria Grahame's pretty young actress next door.
Bogart's performance is brilliant, but the setting works well too, Grahame is great as the sassy girl he falls for, then frightens, the story chugs along at a fair lick, but allowing plenty of time for the many fun minor characters to develop well, and the script is a corker - wonderful stuff..
This man was not physically isolated as Robert Ryan ('Inferno') had been: he was an embittered Hollywood screenwriter who needed self-discipline and trust The lonely place in which he was trapped was his own mind...Perhaps some people thought Bogart over-acted, played the writer like a criminal aggressively apt to be easily offended...
The title describes the mental state of the lead character Dixon Steele - played by our favourite Humphrey Bogart.He seems to be more himself in this movie, than in any other role he played before or since.
I really can't understand why as it's a wonderful Film Noir-style movie with exceptionally exciting dialog and some very clever writing.Bogart plays a strange and complex character--a man who writes screenplays.
"In a Lonely Place" is a magnificent movie, and Humphrey Bogart and Gloria Grahame have outstanding performances.
Art Smith plays Steele's long suffering agent and only true friend.The film skirts film noir traits, but is equal parts murder mystery and tragic love story.
But a glint of light appears in the form of Dixon's beautiful neighbour, Laurel Gray, who provides Dixon with a solid alibi, this sets in motion a relationship between the pair that might break or make either one of them.In A Lonely Place is a fabulous picture, not nominated for any academy awards (incredible in light of Bogart's stunning portrayal as Steele), and tagged on its release as being too bleak to be a winner, it's now rightly considered one of the best films of its type and contains some of the best work from those involved.
It's quite an achievement that director Nicholas Ray molds the pictures halves together and dabs them with darkly affecting visuals, whilst all the time taking us up and down as to how we feel about Dixon Steele and the girl he has clearly fallen in love with.This is not just about the actors (Gloria Grahame as Laurel is also as fabulous as Bogart is) and its director tho, a tip of the hat has to go to the source material by Dorothy Hughes and Edmund H North and the adaptation by Andrew Holt, the ending here is different to the one in the book, but personally I think this one works better because it has a quandary cloud hanging over it, not in a short changed way, but in a deeply unnerving way, the kind that sets you pondering over a cold glass of beer.
It has the elements of the classic 40s film noir tradition and it also anticipates the revival of the melodrama genre which would become so popular in the fifties in the hands of directors like Ray and Sirk.It also contains one of the most schizophrenic of screen performances by Humphrey Bogart.
Featuring his future wife in Gloria Grahame, In a Lonely Place is Nicholas Ray's fourth and finest picture, and Humphrey Bogart's most dynamic performance.
They quickly fall in love after she provides him with a slick alibi, then begins to think different after he shows some of his more unfortunate cards.Ray is best known for Rebel Without a Cause, Grahame for her Oklahoma role of Ado Annie, and Bogart for Casablanca and others.
Gloria Grahame is very well-cast despite the fact the part was specifically written for Lauren Bacall, but playing one of his most complex characters Humphrey Bogart holds the film together in a superb performance.
Shortly after moving into a new apartment, Laurel Gray (Gloria Grahame) discovers a mutual attraction between herself and neighbor Dixon "Dix" Steele (Humphrey Bogart).
While the murder investigation plays through their lives, Steele and his neighbor, Laurel Gray, played by Gloria Grahame in a bravura performance, fall in love.
This is one such film, and if you want to know movies and why they work deep in our soul you need to come to it at some point.Okay the story at face value is that a hard-nosed screenwriter on the rebound is prime suspect for the murder of a young girl he took to his apartment to do some reading for him.
Truly one of the great noirs, "In a Lonely Place" was directed by Nicholas Ray and stars Humphrey Bogart, Gloria Grahame, Frank Lovejoy, Jeff Donnell and Martha Stewart.
Dix's edginess comes with a price - the question is whether she's willing to pay it.The rest of the cast is excellent: Art Smith as Dix's long-suffering agent who loves the guy in spite of everything: Frank Lovejoy as his detective friend, who can't help liking him even if he is a suspect for murder: and Jeff Donnell, who plays Lovejoy's wife, a woman who knows real love when she sees it.What a movie - you really can't ask for more.
A brooding study of aggression, trust and success, Ray's film meticulously deconstructs the Hollywood myth, revealing a frightening world where the man you love could very well be a murderer.Dixon Steele (Humphrey Bogart) is a down-on-his-luck screenwriter, an unsuccessful artist who resents being pressured into writing hackneyed, unoriginal scripts, which are guaranteed money-makers for the studios but possess zero artistic integrity.
Humphrey Bogart is magnificent as a tough Hollywood screenwriter who is romantically involved with a gorgeous actress, Gloria Grahame,meanwhile he's under suspicion of killing of another woman.This is a fascinating psychological thriller which takes Bogey's screen persona and turn him to show the dangerous undertones which could destroy such a man.¨Bogie¨makes mythical stuff of the violent, volatile and two-fisted writer.Bogart's brooding ,male animal intensity brought him rave reviews for this film.Here he is an unlikeable,angry urban male with smooth-talking charmer who erupts into sudden violence.Bogart'd done it all and had it all done to him,he's the patron soul of film noir:High Sierra,Maltese Falcon,Big sleep,Key Largo, Knock on any door and of course, In a lonely place.Gloria Grahame was a female icon of 1950 film noir,Grahame custom mingled vulnerability,sensuality and emotional volatility to craft a remarkable string of flawed characters :Crossfire,Sudden fear,Big heat,Human desire ,Naked alibi, and specially ,In a lonely place.
The distrust in their relationship is the factor that moves the story forward toward a downbeat ending "in a lonely place".It's a thinking man's film noir, but never reaches its full potential as a thriller even though Nicholas Ray does his best to give it the proper noir atmosphere.
Nor is Gloria Grahame's character completely sympathetic when she decides she's had enough.Not likely to please all audiences looking for a good film noir, although there are some who think it is one of Humphrey Bogart's most complex and rewarding roles.
Norman Mailer who as I remember back in the day was always involved in all kinds of scrapes must have been the model used for Bogey's character of Dixon Steele.Anyway a script girl played by Martha Stewart comes over one night and gives him the synopsis of a trashy novel that the movie studio which employs Bogart wants him to adapt.
IN A LONELY PLACE is among the most personal and wise studio films to look at adult love in all its insecurities and fears, capturing not only the feel of the Red Scare of the early 50s but the sad realization that nobody can come out a free man in a world where we are all victims of our own fate and powerless in our control over it.The film's most iconic lines are of Dix in the car with Laurel driving, saying aloud lines he wants to put in his script but doesn't know quite where: "I was born when she kissed me, I died when she left me, I lived a few weeks while she loved me." These film lines not only sum up the speaker's desperate life of trapped loneliness and despair, being reborn in hope of a new relationship, thriving at the chance of love, then falling back into darkness at its failure; it is Dix's life in a single, poetic phrase..
"In a Lonely Place" is a downbeat film noir, and not a comfortable film to watch, but it is unforgettable because of the excellent performances of Humphrey Bogart and Gloria Grahame.
They are completely convincing as a pair of lovers whose relationship begins by chance and then is threatened by their own character flaws.Bogart is Dixon Steele, a Hollywood screenwriter whose temper constantly undermines his better qualities.
The story itself is as unpredictable as the characters, maintaining tension all the way to the ending.Bogart's fans won't find this one as much fun as his more famous roles, but he gives quite a performance, and this is a movie that will certainly keep your attention..
Humphrey Bogart turns in an outstanding performance in this gritty film noir about an aging screenwriter suspected of murder.
She shows great range as their relationship goes through stages, and without spoiling anything, I'll just say that things get difficult for her as Bogart gets erratic, and she realizes he may have committed the crime.Director Nicholas Ray is taut in his story-telling, and there is a wonderful atmosphere to the film, such as when the two are in a nightclub sitting at a piano with other couples as Hadda Brooks performs "I Hadn't Anyone Till You", drinking and murmuring to one another.
As their relationship develops, Dix sizes her up as one of the Hollywood dames "not so good with arithmetic, BUT ask them how many minks make a coat!" Gloria Grahame playing Laurel is the perfect pouty lipped, narrow-eyed, tough noir broad making her the ideal female counterpart for Bogart's domineering, demanding Dixon Steele.
In a Lonely Place (1950) *** 1/2 (out of 4) An aging Hollywood screenwriter (Humphrey Bogart) is accused of killing a woman but that doesn't stop his neighbor (Gloria Grahame) from falling in love with him.
This is a very hypnotic film noir type film from director Nicholas Ray that has a wonderful mystery and a pretty good love story, although it begins to drag a bit towards the end.
Humphrey Bogart is magnificent, (it may be his best performance), as Dixon Steele, a Hollywood scriptwriter whose violent outbursts makes him the prime suspect when a hat-check girl he had taken home is later murdered while Gloria Grahame is also superb as the neighbour who provides him with an alibi and subsequently falls in love with him.Bogart's guilt or innocence is not the issue here.
Then he becomes a suspect in the murder of a hat-check girl, a circumstance that oddly leads to Dixon finding the love of his life, a blonde neighbor named Laurel Gray (Gloria Grahame).
The psychological suspense drama "In a Lonely Place" has Bogart in the lead role of Hollywood screenwriter Dixon Steel a forerunner to Queeg but a much more complicated man.
Firstly the story's great with Bogart as an unstable, violent screenwriter suspected of murder, to the point even his fiance is convinced he did it.Secondly it's a great comment of the time, the 1950s, when screenwriters were accused of communism and their friends eroded and turned against them.Thirdly it's about control, while Dixon Steele attempted to control his love, Nicolas Ray, the director, had been in a relationship with Gloria Grahame and in her contract was a clause that she had to do ANYTHING he said.Watch it.
A Humphrey Bogart headlined suspense drama, directed by Nicholas Ray, his fourth feature, also co-starring Ray's then wife Gloria Grahame, IN A LONELY PLACE has enjoyed a steady augmentation of accolades through the years, Bogart's performance is praised as one of his finest, as Dixon Steele, a Hollywood screenwriter with a propensity for violence, who becomes a major suspect of the murder of Mildred Atkinson (Stewart), a hat-check girl whom he had brought home to read him the story of a book, which he has been required to adapt.A key witness is Dixon's new neighbour, Laurel Gray (Grahame), a young lady just gets out of an unfruitful relationship, who attests that Mildred left Dixon's place alone and unharmed.
Interesting Humphrey Bogart crime-drama.Novel plot: man (Dixon Steele, played by Humphrey Bogart) with a history of violence is accused of murder, female neighbour (Laurele Gray, played by Gloria Grahame) helps clear his name, they fall in love but she comes to be wary of his violent temper and thinks he may well have committed the murder.
A potentially violent screenwriter (Humphrey Bogart) is a murder suspect until his lovely neighbor (Gloria Grahame) clears him.
Alcohol-soaked Hollywood screenwriter Humphrey Bogart (as Dixon "Dix" Steele) and sexy aspiring actress Gloria Grahame (as Laurel Gray) are mutually attracted, but he is suspected in a violent murderer.
Hidden between the carefully positioned paintings on Grahame's apartment wall and the arch of her eyebrow is a love story that does not quite convince; now, if they'd had mixed her romantic feelings with some ulterior motives, director Nicholas Ray might have had something that lined up perfectly...Otherwise, "In a Lonely Place" offers a superb Bogart performance and generally grand work by all...The characterizations surrounding Bogart's pornographically named "Dix Steele" - erstwhile agent Art Smith (as Mel Lippman), annoyingly chatty Martha Stewart (as Mildred Atkinson), and washed-up "silent movie" actor Robert Warwick - all help the film hit home.
Like this film's principals knew, Hollywood loneliness is often filled with drugs and younger sex partners.********* In a Lonely Place (5/17/50) Nicholas Ray ~ Humphrey Bogart, Gloria Grahame, Frank Lovejoy, Art Smith.
I liked the first half of "In a Lonely Place."  But somewhere along the way, the movie drops and nearly forgets the noir-ish murder mystery that got the whole story started and just becomes another '40s/'50s message picture about an out of control and abusive man (this time around a bad temper substitutes for alcoholism).
I found it ironic that the story revolved around a Hollywood screenwriter who was grappling with a script because this script must have involved quite a bit of struggling, possibly from a lack of inspiration on the part of the writer.Bogart aside, I have seen Gloria Grahame, Frank Lovejoy, and Art Smith in other films, and they were much better in them.
Bogart plays Dixon Steele an ex police officer and now Hollywood screenwriter who is very committed to his work as we see throughout the film.
This film is such a good film Noir and has a great story and questions many things but the main question is did he or didn't he?The film begins with Mr Dixon Steele (Bogart) a screenwriter having a few drinks with friends at a bar and friendly chat ends with a quarrel and a bit of a fight.
Humphrey Bogart's down-on-his-luck screenwriter Dix becomes a suspect in the murder of a woman whom he had recently met, so his neighbor Laurel (Gloria Grahame) gives him an alibi.
He portrays one of his most interesting characters of film-noir cinema and was at a zenith of extraordinary acting.The story is about a screenwriter (Bogart) suspected of murdering a woman that is let off by an intrigued neighbour.
At first, Bogart's character is introduced as an average man, but as the film progresses, he becomes darker and more violent.In a Lonely Place is certainly one of Bogey's best and also one of the greatest noires of classic cinema.
In a Lonely Place is a story about a screenwriter who is suspected from murder.Dixon Steele (Humphrey Bogart) is a cynical, lonely Hollywood screenwriter, who wants a random girl to give a summary of a book he is supposed to write a screenplay of.
In a Lonely Place is a romantic film-noir thriller.This is one of Humphrey Bogart's greatest roles.
The writer of In a Lonely Place has said that the role of Dixon Steele is incredibly close to Humphrey Bogart's real life personality.