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In a Lonely Place is about self-destruction and inner darkness set against a Hollywood backdrop - where it lays bare the contradictions, emptiness and enabling found in the studio system.
It's a tragic love story between a cocksure, hot-tempered screenwriter suspected of murder (Dix) and his seemingly composed and cool neighbor Laurel, who provides him with an alibi.
I can't break down the picture any better than Imogen Sara Smith did in her incisive essay... An Epitaph for Love
This bit in particular resonated. In contrasting it with other Hollywood tales, like Sunset Blvd, she wrote...
That's key, and viewers who fail to grasp this could interpret the picture as either knocking Laurel or apologizing for Dix's behavior. While friends and colleagues in the film do this, the story, as story, is far more complex and psychologically nuanced to follow suit. This is simply the world we are observing, and these are the people in this world, for better, for worse.
If we are frustrated by or feel anything for Dix it's because we want to believe in the good, we 'cling' to it. We want him to get his act together. The film even gives us a taste of what can happen when he does - When we see him smiling, in love, and working on his script. We want 'the good' to continue, and it kills us when it doesn't. When Dix's anger rises up, it's terrible, unpredictable, and ugly. We recoil and are sickened by the violence, just as Laurel is - while we are not told why she ran from her previous relationship, we know why she wishes to do so here. When Dix smacks a dear and loyal friend, that's the final nail... he effectively murders his love, his chance at having something clean. And his desperation when he realizes this, only leads him to do something worse.
Going beyond emotional reactions, judge IALP on the nuts and bolts of cinema and you find genius. The quotable screenplay is one of the best ever written, both layered, smart and biting. It branches away from the novel's serial killer story, and adds the element of exposé on the nature of studios, celebrity, and such – and in doing so becomes much more profound. I also think it's Ray at his directorial peak. And the photography, architecture... the rich performances that are both volatile and sensitive... the film's very existence, its brilliance, counters the pictures thematic cynicism and shows us that our hopes are not in vain. Hollywood is able to produce elevated works of art... even if it can't spare these characters from their own personal hell's.
Additional thoughts
I believe it was a wise directorial/screenwriting choice to shift perspectives partway, from Dix to Laurel - Grahame give an incredible performance, and it's all in the small details she throws in there. At first, cool and confident, but as it goes we watch her initial defense of Dix eaten away by doubt. She's heard the stories, seen him lash out, and though he's not smacked her around, there's aggressiveness in the way he speaks to her, in the way he touches her, and she notices that - you can see it in her acting.
It's interesting how the studio didn't want to make a film about a serial killer (who, in the outstanding Dorothy B. Hughes novel this is loosely based on, is also a rapist, so yeah, a hard sell for Hollywood), but what they got instead wasn't exactly cheery - funny that some old schoolers, like L.B. Mayer, disliked how Wilder took the gloss off the dream factory with Sunset Boulevard, but IALP was just as scathing - the studio system lay exposed in 1950, and you could say All About Eve did the same to Broadway.
How does it rank among 1950 releases?
Very well, it's one of my big 5 - 5 features with 5-star grades - joining it are Sunset Boulevard, Rashomon, Los Olvidados, and All About Eve.
Love the lighting in this scene, it doesn't just highlight the eyes, but surrounds the face, so you can see the turned down lips, slack, hanging cigarette and a look of shock, even a little madness(?) on Bogart's expressive features.
"I was born when she kissed me. I died when she left me. I lived a few weeks while she loved me.”
In a Lonely Place (1950)
Directed by Nicholas Ray - screenplay was primarily Andrew Solt, with alterations by Ray - Based on the novel by Dorothy B. Hughes
In a Lonely Place (1950)
Directed by Nicholas Ray - screenplay was primarily Andrew Solt, with alterations by Ray - Based on the novel by Dorothy B. Hughes
In a Lonely Place is about self-destruction and inner darkness set against a Hollywood backdrop - where it lays bare the contradictions, emptiness and enabling found in the studio system.
It's a tragic love story between a cocksure, hot-tempered screenwriter suspected of murder (Dix) and his seemingly composed and cool neighbor Laurel, who provides him with an alibi.
I can't break down the picture any better than Imogen Sara Smith did in her incisive essay... An Epitaph for Love
This bit in particular resonated. In contrasting it with other Hollywood tales, like Sunset Blvd, she wrote...
But what makes this a heartbreaking tragedy instead of a jaded satire is that, beneath its bruised pessimism, the film still clings to the hope that art and integrity and love can survive in the wasteland—a hope that dies slowly, agonizingly before our eyes.
If we are frustrated by or feel anything for Dix it's because we want to believe in the good, we 'cling' to it. We want him to get his act together. The film even gives us a taste of what can happen when he does - When we see him smiling, in love, and working on his script. We want 'the good' to continue, and it kills us when it doesn't. When Dix's anger rises up, it's terrible, unpredictable, and ugly. We recoil and are sickened by the violence, just as Laurel is - while we are not told why she ran from her previous relationship, we know why she wishes to do so here. When Dix smacks a dear and loyal friend, that's the final nail... he effectively murders his love, his chance at having something clean. And his desperation when he realizes this, only leads him to do something worse.
Going beyond emotional reactions, judge IALP on the nuts and bolts of cinema and you find genius. The quotable screenplay is one of the best ever written, both layered, smart and biting. It branches away from the novel's serial killer story, and adds the element of exposé on the nature of studios, celebrity, and such – and in doing so becomes much more profound. I also think it's Ray at his directorial peak. And the photography, architecture... the rich performances that are both volatile and sensitive... the film's very existence, its brilliance, counters the pictures thematic cynicism and shows us that our hopes are not in vain. Hollywood is able to produce elevated works of art... even if it can't spare these characters from their own personal hell's.
Additional thoughts
I believe it was a wise directorial/screenwriting choice to shift perspectives partway, from Dix to Laurel - Grahame give an incredible performance, and it's all in the small details she throws in there. At first, cool and confident, but as it goes we watch her initial defense of Dix eaten away by doubt. She's heard the stories, seen him lash out, and though he's not smacked her around, there's aggressiveness in the way he speaks to her, in the way he touches her, and she notices that - you can see it in her acting.
It's interesting how the studio didn't want to make a film about a serial killer (who, in the outstanding Dorothy B. Hughes novel this is loosely based on, is also a rapist, so yeah, a hard sell for Hollywood), but what they got instead wasn't exactly cheery - funny that some old schoolers, like L.B. Mayer, disliked how Wilder took the gloss off the dream factory with Sunset Boulevard, but IALP was just as scathing - the studio system lay exposed in 1950, and you could say All About Eve did the same to Broadway.
How does it rank among 1950 releases?
Very well, it's one of my big 5 - 5 features with 5-star grades - joining it are Sunset Boulevard, Rashomon, Los Olvidados, and All About Eve.
Love the lighting in this scene, it doesn't just highlight the eyes, but surrounds the face, so you can see the turned down lips, slack, hanging cigarette and a look of shock, even a little madness(?) on Bogart's expressive features.