Human Desire

Plot synopsis:
Returning Korean War vet Jeff Warren (Glenn Ford) is a train engineer, usually working alongside Alec Simmons (Edgar Buchanan). Alec's daughter Ellen (Kathleen Case) is in love with Jeff.
Carl Buckley (Broderick Crawford) is a gruff, hard-drinking assistant yard supervisor married to the younger and more vibrant Vicki (Gloria Grahame). When Carl is fired for talking back to his boss, he pleads with Vicki to go into the city to see the man she used to work for, John Owens (Grandon Rhodes), a railroad executive who can get Carl his job back. Unbeknownst to Carl, Vicki did more than just work for Owens, and she allows Owens to bed her again in order to get Carl his job.
Carl suspects Vicki and in a violent argument the truth slips out of her. Carl beats her and forces her to write a letter to Owens, setting up a meeting in a train car. On the trip Carl goes with Vicki, barges into the room when Owens opens the door, and kills Owens with a knife.
Jeff, who is taking a comp ride on this run, happens to be having a smoke in the vestibule near Owens's compartment. Carl makes Vicki go to Jeff as a distraction so Carl can hide himself.
At the inquest for the murder of Owens, Jeff is called as a witness. The various passengers on the train that night are asked to stand. When he's asked if he saw any of the people that night, Jeff looks intently at Vicki, then answers no.
Vicki and Jeff begin an affair. Jeff wants Vicki to leave Carl and marry him. She finally explains about the killing, and the letter Carl keeps hidden so Vicki will be forced to stay with him. She suggests the only way they'll ever be free is if Jeff kills Carl, making it look like a drunken accident at the rail yard.
Jeff follows the drunk Carl through the yard. But he returns to Vicki saying he couldn't do it, and accuses Vicki of setting him up from the start just so he would kill her husband. She protests that she really does love Jeff, but it's too late. He leaves her, but gives her one thing as he does––the letter, which he took from the drunken Carl without his knowledge.
Vicki is now free to leave Carl. She gets on the next train. But shortly after it leaves the station, Carl enters her compartment, accusing her of running away with Jeff. Vicki denies it and defies Carl, who then realizes he no longer has the letter. When Vicki confronts him with the whole truth about her and Owens, Carl strangles her to death.
Jeff, happily operating the train, has thoughts about taking Ellen to a dance.

Tags: murder, melodrama

Review:
The film turns out to be gloomy, often bleak melodrama that has a striking affinity with Billy Wilder's "Double Indemnity" in its plot, dealing with a married woman (Gloria Grahame) trying to get rid of her bland husband (Broderick Crawford) through the help of a train engineer (Glenn Ford).
If you stop concentrating on the melodramatic plot and focus on Lang's lovely architectural compositions, "Human Desire" becomes quite engrossing picture, on par with "The Big Heat", Lang's previous film noir with Grahame & Ford.
Well-done film noir about a railroad engineer, Jeff Warren (Glenn Ford), who gets mixed up with a beautiful femme fatale (Gloria Grahame) who comes complete with husband who has murdered a man in a train car in an act of jealousy - and happens to be one of Warren's co-workers.
Meeting her on the train just after the murder, kissing her within moments of meeting, it seemed like, our railroad man is soon embroiled in a love affair with this woman, who can't break away from her husband as he is holding a piece of blackmail over her head involving the murder.This film is quite a good one, boosted up considerably by the great performance given by Gloria Grahame, who brings a sad vulnerability to her character and really makes this film.
Broderick Crawford is also very good, as the angry, murderous husband and Glenn Ford comes across as the handsome, strong, quiet type which completely suits his part - well done acting all around for this.
Fresh from their exertions in Fritz Lang's superheated The Big Heat, Glenn Ford and Gloria Grahame (joined by Broderick Crawford) reunite for the director's recension of Zola's La Bete Humaine.
The story had been filmed twice before, as Die Bestie im Menschen in 1920 and La Bête humaine in 1938.The plot revolves around a love triangle axis involving Jeff Warren (Ford), Vicki Buckley (Grahame) and Carl Buckley (Crawford).
Lang had wanted Rita Hayworth for the role, but a child custody case prevented her from leaving the country (much of the film was shot in Canada), so in came Grahame and film noir got another classic femme fatale.
Strong support comes from Buchanan, Case and Diane DeLaire.Adultery, jealousy, murder and passion dwells within Human Desire, a highly accomplished piece of film noir from the gifted Fritz Lang.
His counterpart in the Renoir movie is an authority figure in the railroad system who more than anything else wants to keep up a front of respectability.Gloria Grahame's character is less a femme fatale, like cocky Simone Simon in La bête humaine, than a true victim who has suffered on the hands of different men.
Broderick Crawford and Gloria Grahme make an interesting couple as the two of them unravel in yet another boozy black and white (but mostly drab grey) plot of murder, betrayal, and blackmail, this time on a train as well as in a railroad yard, with Glenn Ford in the middle, coming back to his job as an engineer after fighting in the Korean War. It makes for a cozy and claustrophobic setting.
] There are good points, however, in this film, notably the convincing portrayal of the "cursed couple" by always reliable Gloria Grahame and Broderick Crawford as well as the opening sequences of tracks,switches, metallic bridges...
Human desire aspires to be a hard-hitting, gutsy crime picture that shows not only a story of romance bound to fail from the start, but also makes a series of aggressive comments on the topic of alcoholism and pathology in families.When Jeff Warren (Glenn Ford) returns home after serving his time in Korea, his only dream is to return back to his steady job as a train engineer.
But director Fritz Lang takes his version in an entirely different direction, turning the story from psychological thriller to film noir masterpiece by focusing on the two-timing woman (Vicki Buckley - played by Gloria Grahame).Renoir's "La Bete Humaine" had instead focused on the exploring the mind of Gabin's protagonist (Lantier); specifically his genetic curse of brutality and rage.
His occupation of train engineer and the images of train tracks are used to reinforce the inevitability of his fate.In Lang's version this character (Jeff Warren - played by Glenn Ford) has no dimensionality, the train tracks reinforce his straight and narrow nature, he is not bent and his train engine must be placed in a roundhouse to be given a different direction.There are intersecting tracks in the train yard and Jeff's moral compass is only challenged in that location.
The film's two most suspenseful sequences occur in the train yard and Lang amplifies the discordance with disorienting changes of camera angles and at one point an expressionistic jump-cut as Jeff and Vicki suddenly bridge the distance between each other.But this is Grahame's film; her all-time best performance and Lang's best work as an acting for the camera director.
The only weak point of the movie is the character of Ellen Simmons which I found very naive even though this kind of characters were very common in the movies of that time.Jeff Warren returns to his former job as a train conductor after fighting in the Korea war but he will get involve with one of his coworker's wife beginning a secret relationship that could lead him to commit murder in order to get her free from a terrible thing that she and her husband have done .....
Glenn Ford, Gloria Grahame, and Broderick Crawford deal with "Human Desire" a 1954 film directed by Fritz Lang and based on Emile Zola's "La Bete Humaine." Fresh from Korea, Jeff Warren (Ford) is a railroad engineer currently staying with his friend (Edgar Buchanan) and his family, one of whom is a young woman interested in Jeff.
One of the railroad bosses, Carl Buckley (Crawford) loses his job in a fit of temper and asks his wife Vicki (Grahame) to appeal to a wealthy and powerful family friend to help him get his job back.
Crawford's character is an odd one; he's presented as a good guy and then suddenly he goes off and becomes a total madman.What makes this film is the sexual tension between Ford and Grahame.
Emile ZOLA's books are deceptive.It is hard to transfer them to the screen badly while being harder still to make great movies out of them.In "La Bete Humaine" the 19th volume in the Rougon-Macquart saga,the hero was "invented" from start to finish by the writer who needed another son of Gervaise ("l'Assommoir").Like most of Zola's characters ,his family had a history of mental illness (which stemmed from alcoholism).When he made his movie in 1939,(la Bete Humaine)Jean Renoir insisted on the "I cannot help it" side ,which the scene when Gabin tries to strangle Blanchette Brunoy and the apocalyptic finale perfectly restitutes.As Zola's book was -it's one of his best- also a thriller (some of its chapters make me think of Patricia Highsmith) ,Lang's treatment made sense.This is one of the few Zola novels which after all could happen in America .The war is a hackneyed subject and is not really a good equivalent of Lantier's (the original name)folly.That's why Glenn Ford's character is not really interesting ,even if it fits in the Lang's "every man is a potential criminal" mold.On the other hand Gloria Grahame's character is at least as good as Simone Simon's one.She displays more ambiguity,she too seems at once "good" and "evil".Lang's talent makes the opening as exciting as Renoir's work but the finale is definitely inferior.It was the second time Ford and Grahame had teamed up for Lang after "the big heat" (which was ,IMHO,a better collaboration).
It is a love triangle with Broderick Crawford and Gloria Grahame as an unhappy couple, with Glenn Ford at his somnambulistic best, showing all the emotion of a turnip.
Human Desire, Fritz Lang's update of Emile Zola's book La bete Humaine (and also made into the wonderful film of the same name by Jean Renoir, a kind of pre-noir example in the 30's), is drenched in noir, and it's a wonderful example of what could be done with the right actors - or seemingly the right ones all the way through - and the right setting.
It's set among workers on trains, as an engineer, Jeff, played by Glenn Ford, comes back from Korea and is back a work, a nice but quiet type usually, and also works with Broderick Crawford's Carl.
She goes to see this boss-man, but Crawford ain't havin' it: he goes ahead and kills the guy on a train, and Glenn Ford's character suspects something, having seen Vicki come out of the same car.
And for a dame?Sounds like a book title (matter of fact it was at some point), but it's how Lang presents these characters, in shadows and among the grime of the trains and tracks, and those dark rooms, that make things interesting.
It's a strange thing since she isn't bad in the role, just inconsistent, and it was mostly due to some good chemistry with Ford (who he himself is a little stiff in a non-bad-ass-villain role but stuff dependable) that I could believe her in the part.Lang also gets some moments for "pure" cinema, that is without much dialog and just the physical locations and scenes, like how Jeff just motions for a cigarette and drives away as the engineer on the train, or how he tracks Carl one night coming back from a bar drunk.
Things like that, or how Jeff and Vicki are lit outside by the tracks at night contemplating their love/lust for one another, is done with such emotion that is just fine.Other times there is some melodrama, and, again, Crawford does ham it up in some scenes to where it comes close to unintentional hilarity (the crowd I saw the movie with laughed at a few key moments that would've probably been dead-silent back in the day, but this may be more for the change in times than anything else).
I don't think it was Fritz Lang's fault that Human Desire did not quite turn out like the Jean Renoir film of Emile Zola's La Bete Humaine, let alone the novel itself.
In any event I'll be viewing and reviewing the Renoir film soon I hope for comparison.In any event part of the reason that Fritz Lang did this film for Columbia I'm sure was Harry Cohn's desire to team Ford and Gloria Grahame once again.
Ford's bunking in temporarily with his old friend Edgar Buchanan and his daughter Diane DeLaire has eyes for him.A man with a not so good domestic situation is fellow worker Broderick Crawford married to Gloria Grahame.
She gets his job back, but things take a turn when he becomes jealous of his wife and ends up killing Owens on a train...The film takes on the classic bleak film noir style and Lang compliments this well with his assortment of characters and the plot line.
HUMAN DESIRE has it all: a jealous husband (Broderick Crawford), his mousy but sensuous wife (Gloria Grahame), a Korean war vet with an unshakable moral code (Glenn Ford) and all the murder and duplicity one could ask for in a Fritz Lang movie.
Back on the home-front, Mr. Ford learns hulky co-worker Broderick Crawford (as Carl Buckley) has been promoted to railroad "yard master" and has acquired a beautiful wife, seductive Gloria Grahame (as Vicki).
Moreover, it's directed by Fritz Lang and photographed by Burnett Guffey, with occasional flair.****** Human Desire (8/5/54) Fritz Lang ~ Glenn Ford, Gloria Grahame, Broderick Crawford.
Glenn Ford is unusually good here, although he plays the same character as he always did, but here at least he doesn't talk and act too much but is kept more aptly at bay by the expert thriller director Fritz Lang, who once again surprises you by appearing totally new in his ways of getting into people.
Gloria Grahame is always good but here better than ever as a helpless victim of her exposed weakness as married to the hoodlum Broderick Crawford, who is here worse than ever, but only as a type, not as a character, because his acting is marvellous, going constantly from bad to worse in one of the most convincing revelations on cinema of a man going piece by piece to perdition.I was disappointed by the Jean Gabin film on this story, which was downright depressing in spite of Jean Renoir's excellent direction, but this film is not depressing, although the same story but with a more human view of the situation.
It's a great film on a bad story, Jean Renoir made the bad story even more destructive on film, but here at least you have genuine human feelings, in the despairing eyes of Gloria Grahame, the sharply investigating looks of Glenn Ford, and the exaggerated but marvellously convincing drunkenness, as an illustration of his helplessness, of Broderick Crawford.
One look at Crawford and you know he's bad news.Was it a fluke that Lang and Ford and Grahame came together again to make this just after "The Big Heat" or was it providence?
Human Desire (1954) *** (out of 4) Minor but interesting love triangle from Fritz Lang about a Korea vet (Glenn Ford) who begins a love affair with a married woman who can't leave her husband because of a murder secret.
Fritz Lang's Human Desire is well worth the watch for any fan of film noir, as it is truly competent in that respect.
Glenn Ford and Gloria Grahame are back together following the superbly good The Big Heat a year earlier, although this time the result isn't nearly as interesting.
Grahame as the femme fatale is the high point of this movie for me, Glenn Ford certainly doesn't disappoint, and although I was never a big fan of Broderick Crawford, his performance here is apt.These back-to-back movies starring Glenn Ford and Gloria Grahame remind me of Lang's earlier works, The Woman in the Window and Scarlet Street, both starring the wonderful Edward G.
Jeff Warren (Glenn Ford) encounters and is distracted by Vicki as Carl murders John.This is a dark melodramatic noir of non-sympathetic characters with no rooting interest.
I guess Broderick Crawford has done better roles than this one.The scenes in the train reminded me of another noir called "The Narrow Margin" which came out a couple of years before Human Desire.
Anyway this is a pretty good film despite this with many good performances especially Gloria Grahame and a sublime piece of acting from Broderick Crawford as the abusive killer husband who just can't keep up with life.
Fritz Lang was well on the way toward losing his magic touch with grim film noir by the time he did HUMAN DESIRE, from an Emile Zola novel and better made originally with Jean Gabin and Simone Simon.
His Hollywood phase included such disappointments as WHILE THE CITY SLEEPS and BEYOND A REASONABLE DOUBT, both highly flawed from a directorial standpoint.Here he has the screen's sauciest femme fatale, GLORIA GRAHAME, using her sultry demeanor to lure All-American hero GLENN FORD into committing a murder to dispose of her obnoxious, insanely jealous husband BRODERICK CRAWFORD.The plot is driven by Crawford's brutal killing of his wife's ex-boss whom he suspects of dallying with her.
Fritz Lang's "Human Desire" is based on Emile Zola's novel "La Bete Humaine" which had previously been made into a movie directed by Jean Renoir in 1938.
These people are not only unencumbered by any type of moral code but also, by their actions, have a corrupting effect on a more passive character who is also a mutual acquaintance.Railroad official Carl Buckley (Broderick Crawford) is fired from his job for insubordination and begs his wife Vicki (Gloria Grahame) to approach her mother's former employer, the influential John Owens (Grandon Rhodes), to get him to persuade Carl's ex-employer to change his mind and re-employ him.
Railroad engineer Jeff Warren (Glenn Ford) is standing in the train corridor when the couple want to leave Owens' compartment and so Carl tells Vicki to encourage Jeff away from the area which she duly does.
Glenn Ford then shows as the action continues, how Jeff's demeanour alters as he becomes morally compromised enough to withhold information from the murder inquest before getting involved in an affair with the untrustworthy Vicki and then taking part in a plot to kill her husband."Human Desire" is ultimately an engaging and sordid story about people who act without reason, logic or compassion and in the process, corrupt or inflict misery on, those with whom they come into contact..
Crawford gets fired from his job at a train yard, and asks his wife to put in a good word for him with a successful business man she knew before they were married.
But, instead of controlling his wife Carl is losing her to returning veteran and railroad engineer Jeff Warren played by Glenn Ford.
But, it is a quite strong film due to the strength of Grahame as Vicky Buckley in playing out of that age old story of a love triangle with a murder in the middle As such is gets a definite recommendation..
She tries to get him to knock off her husband which leads to one of the definitive great film noir sequences where Ford follows Crawford through a darkened railroad yard.
Grahame, fresh from her best film noir role in "The Big Heat" (also with Ford) isn't as interesting here.
From Zola, by way of Renoir, Fritz Lang's "Human Desire" becomes a story of love, hatred, murder, lust, and more murder in and around a railroad marshaling yard.Broderick Crawford is the hulking drunk who is morbidly jealous of his younger and horny wife, Gloria Grahame.
Lang offers Glenn Ford for Gabin, Brod Crawford for Ledoux, Edgar Buchanan for Carette and Gloria Grahame for Simon.
Warren meets Vicki Buckley(Gloria Graham)and enters a passionate affair after reluctantly helping her bullish, combustible husband(Broderick Crawford)get away with murder.
But, in "Human Desire", Crawford is an engineer on a train--not the sort of man you'd ever believe would marry Graham (or vice-versa).