In a Lonely Place (1950)

Humphrey Bogart made 75 feature films during his career, and most fans of cinema would likely name The African Queen, The Maltese Falcon, Casablanca, and The Treasure of the Sierra Madre as among his finest performances. While these films deservedly enjoy iconic status, there’s another Bogart movie often overlooked by anyone not falling into the category of cinephile or critic: In a Lonely Place. Taking the same cynical insider’s view of Hollywood as two other motion pictures released in 1950, All About Eve and Sunset Boulevard (25 Oscar nominations between them), In a Lonely Place (zero Oscar nominations) has slowly clawed its way to acclaim as a classic. Call it the little noir that could.

Bogart stars as weathered Hollywood screenwriter Dixon Steel, a booze-soaked creative type with contempt for shallow projects and a tendency to display his temper in public. Offered a job adapting a novel to the screen, he researches the project by inviting a coat check girl, Mildred Atkinson (Martha Stewart), back to his place. She’s already read the book, you see, and Steel quickly judges it to be garbage by listening to her babbling description. After sending her away and retiring for the evening, he’s awakened at 5am by war buddy and police detective, Brub Nicolai (Frank Lovejoy). Dixon is wanted downtown, but not for the reason he expects (assaulting a director the previous evening). No, young Mildred was found murdered, and Steele is the primary suspect.

Enter Laurel Gray (Gloria Grahame), an actress who’s recently moved in across the courtyard from Dixon. She witnessed Mildred leaving alone the previous evening, and she confirms his alibi to the police. It’s not long before the two are involved in a relationship, but Steel’s unpredictable and often violent behavior begins to give her serious doubts as to his innocence.

Adapted from the novel by Dorothy B. Hughes, In a Lonely Place repeatedly blurs the line between fact and fiction, which is appropriate considering the illusory nature of Hollywood. Characters use movie dialogue to express their emotions (“I was born when she kissed me. I died when she left me. I lived a few weeks while she loved me.”), and much of the plot is mirrored within the pages of the book described by Mildred Atkinson. This creates a dream-like world filled with heartache, betrayal, and suspicion. It’s a world that Dixon Steel is desperately trying to wake up from.

Director Nicholas Ray has ample opportunity to comment on Tinseltown thanks to the screenplay by Andrew Solt and Edmund H. North, and he doesn‘t waste his chance. Children loiter in front of restaurants collecting autographs, an alcoholic ex-star is treated like a leper, and you can almost hear the sneer in his voice when Dixon’s agent looks up Laurel Gray in an industry directory and discovers she’s only made a few low-budget pictures. But the best moment comes courtesy of future corpse Mildred Atkinson, a young woman who admits to always reading the end of a book first. When defining an epic, she describes it as, “a picture that’s real long and has lots of things going on.” Some things never change.

Bogart always excelled at world-weary types, and Dixon Steel falls squarely into that category. Endlessly pursued by members of the opposite sex, Steel brushes them aside while searching for a woman of substance. He likes his paying gigs to be equally substantial, refusing to work on projects deemed unworthy of his talent. He chastises a filmmaker–and possible employer–for cranking out variations of the same film for over 20 years (calling him a “popcorn salesman”). Anyone who believes every film made pre-1960 was a classic should pay attention to this not-so-thinly-veiled commentary.

Steel is cursed with an artistic temperament, something he’s obviously put on display time after time (“There goes Dix again.”). From fracturing a producer’s jaw to possibly beating a former lover, his robust police file is filled with examples of drunken brawls and petty assaults. Laurel, poor dear, finds out about this the hard way when she witnesses him nearly kill a man with a rock following a road rage incident. Of course, constantly joking about committing a crime isn’t a good way to divert suspicion, either.

It’s fascinating to watch a man self-destruct in less than two hours, and that’s exactly what we get to do with Dixon. He has talent and a woman who loves him, but even that’s not enough. Fueled by paranoia and an inner masochism, he does his best to drive away those who care. Even a visit to an old friend’s house ends with the host nearly choking his wife into unconsciousness (as a patch of light shines across Steel’s suddenly passionate face). Steel’s lonely place is entirely of his own making.

Another example of his self-destructive nature comes in the form of his telephone. On several occasions, it’s mentioned that he never answers it. Hollywood starlets call to arrange encounters, and it rings off the hook. His agent phones to discuss a project, and there’s no reply. He tells his war buddy he’ll call him, but a year goes by without a word. When he does decide to pick up during the course of the film, it inevitably leads to something tragic. It’s as though he knows what’s waiting on the other end and welcomes it. That, or fate has a very cruel sense of humor.

In a Lonely Place is a well-crafted film that still exists on the fringes of celebrity. It’s popular with those who’ve discovered it, but remains a mystery to the majority of moviegoers. When you consider, however, the movie’s damaged characters and their brutal struggle for every scrap of love or fame, maybe the fringe is the perfect place to be. I just wish it was longer and had more things going on.

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