Directed by Nicholas Ray ; written by Edmund H. North and Andrew Solt.
Starring Humphrey Bogart and Gloria Grahame.
Given a chance to save his career, a talented but down-at-heel Hollywood scriptwriter baulks at the cheap novel he's been asked to adapt. Deliberating in a bar, he meets a girl who offers to help him, but her involvement only leads to trouble.
Nicholas Ray is best remembered today as the director of James Dean's second starring feature Rebel Without A Cause (1955) and sadly this obscures the fact that he was one of the most talented directors working in the Hollywood mainstream during the middle years of the twentieth century.
Having made his feature debut in 1949 with the startling film noir They live By Night for RKO he then made several films in a very short space of time. In A Lonely Place is his fifth feature despite only being released a year after his debut. RKO released his Born To Be Bad (with Joan Fontaine and Robert Ryan) within months of this picture's theatrical debut.
Despite the speed at which he was working each film is very carefully constructed with beautifully designed shots and a very real sense of time and place. As a former architecture student (under Frank Lloyd Wright!) Ray understood the vital importance of surroundings and setting to establish his characters in the world which they inhabit.
In A Lonely Place has several examples of this : not least in the apartment complex where the two leads live and the use of several very recognisable LA landmarks in the exterior shots.
Based on a justly celebrated 1947 novel by Dorothy B. Hughes the film was made by Bogart's own production company Santana Productions : Ray and his screenwriters made several changes to the original work, including the inspired decision to change the identity of the murderer : a change that adds several new layers to the story.
The opening scene quickly establishes Bogart's character - driving through a luminous LA nightscape (the black &n white photography by Burnett Guffney is quite something throughout) Bogart pulls up at a traffic light where he encounters a young actress with whom he's 'worked' in the past. A brief flirtatious exchange is broken up by the brusque interuption of the actress' new husband : Bogart's hair-trigger temper has him already half way out of his car and ready to slug the other before the lights change and the couple drive away.
In the second scene we learn that he's a screenwriter whose last hit was several years ago ("before the war" according to one of his friends), that he likes a drink and that he values the company of his friends, to whom he's absurdly loyal.
And then the story proper gets underway. (No spoilers here - it really helps if you come to the film with little or no idea of where the story is going to go from this point on.)
Bogart is simply superb in the lead role : we know that he can do the tough guy, is adapt at light comedy and is perfectly capable of doing sullen introspection but in the part of Dixon Steele he parades all these character traits, often in the same scene and sometimes within the same breath. It's an extraordinary performance and a very brave one : the character is deeply flawed and at times very far from likable.
The lead female role is a superb piece of writing : Ginger Rogers and Lauren Bacall were apparently both considered but the producers hit pay-dirt with Gloria Grahame who effectively manages the transition from cool outsider through lovesick and on into a much darker place very skilfully. Attractive enough to be believable as a wannabe actress but not so glamorous as to make the idea of her and Bogart together ridiculous; it's a very smart piece of casting and it pays real dividends in terms of making the story credible and realistic.
In supporting roles there's terrific work from Frank Lovejoy (as the ex-army buddy of Bogart now working as a cop), Art Smith (as Bogart's long time and long suffering agent) and Martha Stewart (not that one!) as the youngster Bogart befriends and the starting point for his troubles.
Often classified as a film noir In A Lonely Place is harder to pin down than that implies : yes there's an element of crime thriller and the police procedural but there's also a profound love story and a psychological drama going on. What Nichols Ray does is keep each of the elements moving forward while blending them together to create a magnificent piece of cinema which is one of the best examples of what could be achieved when an actor not afraid to take risks worked in close collaboration with a director with an elevated sense of what could be achieved within the genre picture.
In A Lonely Place is a very special film and one that deserves every ounce of the critical respect that it has received since it's release.
No comments:
Post a Comment