Awesome Noir

i disagree, i think that this film is a product of its time and therefore a film noir. the term wasn't coined until the 1970's, so of course the people making film noirs at the time didn't think of them as such. its film noir-ish not just because of the shadows and the "icy female" but because it is a pessimistic outlook on married life, Hollywood life, and love in general. the male protagonist is one that we aren't sure if we like or not, which is also a characteristic of film noir. it was also a film commenting on the Hollywood politics of the time, as it criticizes its methods and morals, such as blacklisting of writers/directors/actors and the trash that was being put out at the time (the book Dix was adapting was trash and he knew it, thats why he didn't read it). there are many stylistic camera choices that Ray uses to portray all of issues, such as shadows, odd and uncomfortable angles and persectives, and a murder mystery that isn't put in the spotlight, for its not the true question in this film.

Some people think film noir is a set of boxes, and every one of them has to be checked off by a movie or it's not film noir. It doesn't matter that the designation "film noir" came about after these movies were made, so their makers weren't using it at the time. That doesn't mean they're not film noir, and "In a Lonely Place" is clearly film noir, which is how we should think of it.

THIS is the film Bogart should have an Oscar for - his best performance and Gloria Grahame was always great. One of N. Ray's best films.

In a Lonely Place is such a terrific movie. It's one of Nicholas Ray's best efforts and a film that sorely needs rediscovery by a wider audience.

Humphrey Bogart gives a brilliant performance of barely controlled menace as Dixon Steele, the alcoholic screenwriter whose uncontrollable temper and violent outbursts frighten new love Gloria Grahame into a paranoid panic. It was such a change to see Bogie play a tough guy who was not only cynical and hardboiled, but also neurotic, malevolent and downright disturbed. Grahame is equally good in one of her strongest roles. The studio wanted Lauren Bacall or Ginger Rogers for the role of Laurel, but eventually they agreed to Ray casting his then-wife Grahame. And thank God they did: she is magnificent in this movie. She plays Laurel Gray as a sympathetic, vulnerable, masochistic young woman whose fear of Bogart's temper leads her to suspect him of being a murderer and herself as his next intended victim. Bogart and Grahame spark off a very passionate and believable romantic chemistry that's as strong as the spark he had with Ingrid Bergman in Casablanca or Lauren Bacall in To Have and Have Not, The Big Sleep or Key Largo.

*spoilers ahead *

In the chilling Dorothy B. Hughes novel it's loosely based on, the character of Dixon Steele is a completely sick, obsessive serial rapist and killer who stalks women on the streets at night and is so convinced that police can't catch him that he carelessly leaves clues lying around everywhere he goes. The film version Dix isn't already a killer, but on several occasions we see that he could easily snap and cross the line at any moment. The end is shockingly bleak and downbeat. It doesn't matter that Dix didn't actually commit the Mildred Atkinson murder he was under investigation for. By then Laurel knows that he is at least easily capable of it, and that's grounds enough for her to leave him. As she says, "Yesterday this would have meant so much to us. Now it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter at all."

"Noir" doesn't necessarily mean the style of film itself or the cinematography. It can also describe an atmosphere of hopelessness and despair. If you want to read some of the bleakest, darkest novels ever written, read Cornell Woolrich. The despair just drips off the pages. He was one of the very, very few male authors who could write noir female roles convincingly.