In A Lonely Place (the Nicholas Ray-directed film not the Joy Division song)

lol @ "Freedom" itt

i love On Dangerous Ground

One of my fave movies to watch for wallowing in romantic angst.

Just saw this film this evening at the BFI.

Really can't understand the love for this film: it's slow, clunky and stilted. And the worst problem is that Bogart/Dixon Steele is just such a horrible character there's no interest in watching him. If it was a more nuanced performance where he shows different sides to his character it might be different, but as it is he's just a violent bore.

I thought so the first time I watched it: a B-movie setup.

Then I watched the Criterion edition a couple weeks ago.

squeeze harder

Wow, I saw it at the BFI yesterday too, I thought it was really wonderful, didn't really know much about it in advance, only knew the stars and director and a vague sense that Graham and Ray were breaking up when it was filmed. She's fabulous in it and given more to do than usual, what a waste to always serve her up as the same conniving cheap dame. There was real charm in their relationship even as you knew that he was a serial abuser. I liked their outfits, her bomber jackets and drop earrings especially.

I thought there were lots of really excellent things about it. The offhand reveal of the murder and the remoteness of the investigation from the workings of the plot, how the film itself was situated in the margins of some other larger drama. Laurel's view of the action, her ability to know what happened seems to approximate our own so that the architecture of their apartment complex seems like the framing of the film itself, the view of her standing on her balcony from between the slats of the venetian blind, the vignetted scenes of domestic bliss that Dix's agent sees when he's checking in on the progress of the screenplay, the increasingly tangled criss cross views of the courtyard, in and out of doors and windows,and her and our gradually unravelling certainty about what happened to Mildred Atkinson, so that the paranoia of the noir genre seems to stand in for some general unease about what can be contained in an image and what subterranean violence frames it.

Definitely up there with Ray's best for me, although I've never really understood Rebel Without a Cause

There were elements I liked: the apartment complex, some of the photography (especially in the masseuse scene and some of the outside landscapes), but the off-centre murder didn;t work for me as it made the film less embedded in the noir genre.

Things I didn't like:

- I couldn't stand the Shakespearian actor/drunk
- the soundtrack music
- the 'clever' dialogue
- Bogart's performance - needed more light and shade
- the change in Gloria Grahame's character from smart strong female as the film goes on
- the wooden supporting characters

It's possible I could have been is something of a un receptive state of mind - but I don't think another viewing would lead me to re-think it as 'wonderful'.

the change in Gloria Grahame's character from smart strong female as the film goes on

well, love does things to people.

I wonder if anyone will ever film the plot of the novel, in which Dix is much younger, not a screenwriter, and (not a spoiler) a killer.

also, it is signalled that she might be a bit of a flake and a fantasist through her backstory about jilting the real estate magnate

in the movie Laurel lies to provide Dix with his alibi in the first place, "strong" might be one way of describing that but "implicated" would be another.

You’re ganging up to deny her agency!

does she lie? I thought she, like we the viewers, did see the girl leave, but can't be sure of what happened after. Why was he still dressed etc. ?

without going back to watch i can't be certain but i'm sure she makes the alibi stronger than what she actually could have seen, because she already finds Dix interesting - which isn't denying her agency! it's more that she starts the relationship already knowing that, at least, he has a propensity for "trouble"

this film is really something. it's very clever in how it first positions Dix as a wrongly accused, misunderstood suspect in a vicious murder, and puts us reflexively on his side, but then in a parallel fashion as he fights to clear his name, it shows what kind of monster he is.

He's a very violent, abusive, cruel man. His life is a tragedy, for somewhere in there is a good man who is completely destroyed by his anger and vicious streak. And it's only due to pure luck (a cry of protest, a timely phone call) that he winds up not being a killer. Narratively that initial set up (and then pulling the rug out from under the audience) is terrific.

Rewatched this for the first time in years, again in connection to James Harvey's Movie Love in the Fifties.

Morbidly fascinating for sure, although I wouldn't quite put it in my first rank of '50s American films (On the Waterfront, Sweet Smell of Success, Paths of Glory). Dix is another one for that Ethan Edwards/Scottie/Dave Bannion borderline psycho list.

Harvey doesn't mention something I just assumed: that Laurel was planning to run off with Martha the masseuse at the end. There are clear intimations of this, I think.

Not sure if this comes up in the thread, but according to Harvey, Ray's original script (all but four pages of which were altered) had the film end with Dix murdering Laurel, then having his friend arrive at the apartment to clear him of the other murder.

"Dix Steele"--that's like one Hays Code warning away from Johnny Wadd.

this is one of the best movies ever made imho

this is certainly Graham's best and that's saying something!

My fave Bogie performance (even if it isn't the most Bogie performance).

This is a good movie.

this is one of the best movies ever made imho
― k*r*n koltrane (Simon H.), Monday, May 25, 2020 12:32 PM (yesterday0

This.