page_title: In a Lonely Place
section_title: Plot
hierarchical_section_title: In a Lonely Place / Plot
caption_attribution_description: English: Description: Low-resolution reproduction of screenshot from trailer for the movie In a Lonely Place (1950), featuring stars Gloria Grahame and Humphrey Bogart.
context_page_description: In a Lonely Place is a 1950 American film noir directed by Nicholas Ray and starring Humphrey Bogart and Gloria Grahame, produced for Bogart's Santana Productions. The script was written by Andrew P. Solt from Edmund North's adaptation of Dorothy B. Hughes' 1947 novel of the same name.
  Bogart stars as Dixon Steele, a deranged and troubled screenwriter suspected of murder, and Grahame co-stars as Laurel Gray, a neighbor who falls under his spell. Beyond its surface plot of confused identity and tormented love, the story is a mordant comment on Hollywood mores and the pitfalls of celebrity and near-celebrity, similar to two other American films released that same year, Billy Wilder's Sunset Boulevard and Joseph L. Mankiewicz's All About Eve.
  Although lesser known than his other work, Bogart's performance is considered by many critics to be among his finest and the film's reputation has grown over time along with Ray's.
  It is now considered as one of the best film noirs of all time, as evidenced by its inclusion on the Time "All-Time 100 Movies" list as well as Slant Magazine's "100 Essential Films" and list Top 1 as "The 100 Best Film Noirs of All Time".
context_section_description: Dixon "Dix" Steele 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, at a nightclub, Dix's explosive temper is revealed when, at a stoplight, he engages with another motorist in a confrontation that almost becomes violent.
  At the nightclub, Mel cajoles him to adapt a book for a movie. The hat-check girl, Mildred Atkinson, is engrossed in reading the copy meant for Dix; since she only has a few pages left to go, she asks to finish before passing it on to Dix.  Dix has a second violent outburst when a young director bad-mouths Dix's friend Charlie, 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.  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 who is now a police detective, Brub Nicolai, who takes him downtown to be questioned by Captain Lochner. Mildred was murdered during the night and Dix is a suspect. Laurel is brought to the police station, she 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 and, with Laurel assisting him, Dix finds new energy and goes back to work with enthusiasm, much to his agent's delight.
  Dix remains notoriously erratic, however, and sometimes behaves strangely. He says things that make his agent Mel and Brub's wife Sylvia wonder if he did kill the girl. Lochner sows seeds of doubt in Laurel's mind, pointing out Dix's long record of violent behavior. When he learns about this, and that Laurel has not told him of her meeting with Lochner, Dix becomes furious and irrational. With her a terrified passenger, he drives at high speed 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 secretly makes a plane reservation and tells Mel she is leaving because she cannot take it anymore. Dix finds out and becomes violent, almost strangling her before he regains control of himself. 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. It is too late, however, to salvage Dix and Laurel's relationship.
caption: Laurel takes a frightening ride with Dix
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