some thoughts (possible spoilers)

Has anyone ever noticed that Dix never wears a tie? Okay, I recall Bogart wears a bow tie in maybe one scene. Otherwise, open collar shirt or turtle neck. Did the filmmakers feel this was a more writerly look?
Other thoughts/quibbles: Laurel has no visible means of support. She’s an out-of work (by choice?) B actress who now lives in a spacious, trendy apartment, wears designer clothes and adorns her walls with high class, presumably original, art, and has a massage therapist visit her a couple of times a week. Laurel spends her days mostly assisting Dixon in the screenplay and she sometimes visits the police station. She doesn’t get paid for the work she does for Dix. What is the source of her income?
We presume Dix is forty-ish years of age, maybe a little older (Bogart was around fifty when he made the film). In the scene of the near auto wreck, is it realistic to expect him to punch out a strapping, much younger guy, who was a football hero at that?
The character of Dix seems to have a love/hate relationship with his writer persona. Sometimes he sees himself as a special, gifted kind of person (reinforced to some extent by colleagues and friends), and other times he’s making barbs about writers and their lowly state in the film business pantheon.
Another thing: throughout the film colleagues and acquaintances refer to Dix as a special being, a creative artist, little short of genius, ergo they can overlook his loutish behavior. However, we see no evidence of extraordinary talent in the story. True, he had a couple of hits in his glory days before the war, and he can work fast – maybe (the time frame during his writing of the script is fairly ambiguous.) And the producer likes the finished script. I guess we have to accept the comments of those around him on face value. However ... and for all its virtues, In a Lonely Place doesn’t quite close the deal on the notion of Dix Steele as a scriptwriting genius.