I think Bogie was too frail & old looking by 1950 to be believable as someone who could beat people up even in a rage.
A younger actor with a dark side like Robert Mitchum, Kirk Douglas or Robert Ryan would have been better.
Those three guys also had the acting chops to carry off the role; all three were terrifying when they snapped.
I also thought of Lee Marvin, but in 1950, he didn't have the clout yet to land this role.
The part where Dix beats up the football player was a little unrealistic, and even though Mitchum's coolness, Douglas' tough prowess, and Ryan's terrifying anger were all great (he worked with Nicholas Ray for countless projects including On Dangerous Ground), what separated Humphrey Bogart from all the rest was his vulnerability and love that always lay hidden beneath the cynicism (imagine Douglas, Ryan or Mitchum saying the immortal lines "I was born when she kissed me, I died when she left me, I lived a few weeks while she loved me" with the same conviction). And also, with the three mentioned above, even though they were tough, I have yet to see a role where I felt that they were haunted; they never seemed to have a past or a history. By 1950 Douglas, Ryan and Mitchum weren't newcomers, but at the same time they hadn't been in Hollywood long. Bogart's time in Hollywood was surrounded by distain for his studio and heavy drinking and smoking, which fits perfectly for a screenwriter who hates the system, and reflects the ruggedness of a man who's spent one year too many in Hollywood and had one drink too many. One of the reasons why Bogart is so praised for this role is because, like Treasure of the Sierra Madre, he was so willing to be shown in a bad light both physically and emotionally, and allowing his persona to be twisted in a way Hitchcock loved to do.
An easy answer would be to say that nobody else was considered for the role other than Bogart; his production company produced it and the script was being tailored for him.
"Either it's raining or I'm dreaming."
"Maybe it's both."--Jules and Jim
The part where Dix beats up the football player was a little unrealistic,
I disagree. The way it was shot and played out captures the perfect arbitrariness of such incidents when they happen in real life. It's an accident that Dix didn't kill that poor guy since Laurel was there and it's just an accident that the poor kid crossed his path. In many ways it foreshadows Meursault's actions in L'Etranger.
I have yet to see a role where I felt that they were haunted; they never seemed to have a past or a history. By 1950 Douglas, Ryan and Mitchum weren't newcomers, but at the same time they hadn't been in Hollywood long.
And they needn't be. The character of Dix is someone who hasn't been in Hollywood long either.
In any case, neither of those three actors could have worked. Mitchum a great actor(and speaking of being haunted...have you seen Out of the Past or Pursued?) didn't have the urbanity of Bogart to play the role. Mithcum was always an actor that suggested a country upbringing while Bogart is a city-man plain and simple. Douglas wouldn't have worked because well he's not really very likable. The thing is as horrible as Dix' actions are in the film the audience is never allowed to dislike him or see him as a special case. Douglas would have made it so.
Robert Ryan could have done it as is apparent in On Dangerous Ground which although badly mutilated is also concerned with the same existentialist themes of In A Lonely Place but then ultimately that would have been a different film, maybe a better film but not this film.
"Don't teach your grandmother to suck eggs." - Nathanael West
I disagree. The way it was shot and played out captures the perfect arbitrariness of such incidents when they happen in real life. It's an accident that Dix didn't kill that poor guy since Laurel was there and it's just an accident that the poor kid crossed his path. In many ways it foreshadows Meursault's actions in L'Etranger.
It wasn't the actions around the event that I felt was unrealistic, it was the fact that Bogart at age 50 so quickly beat a young, able college football player, who basically stands there and lets himself be be taken down. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wkdLn72ax3Y
And concerning Mitchum, I really respect him as an actor and I liked him in Out of the Past, but I found the film a bore after the flashback ended.
The character of Dix is someone who hasn't been in Hollywood long either.
Yes, he has (a director tells Dix that he "hasn't had a hit since before the war"), and some have pointed out that a big part of his internal demons deal with the fact that he's lived in a place that he clearly has no respect for for so long.
"Either it's raining or I'm dreaming."
"Maybe it's both."--Jules and Jim
It wasn't the actions around the event that I felt was unrealistic, it was the fact that Bogart at age 50 so quickly beat a young, able college football player, who basically stands there and lets himself be be taken down.
Which again can happen in real life. Just because you are a college football player doesn't mean you can't get beaten up by people who maybe physically weaker than you. That poor kid didn't expect him to go berserk and he was caught off-balance. And besides Dix was a WW2 veteran and that experience of enduring that conflict probably gave him advantage.
In any case Bogart's character was probably in the late 40's.
Yes, he has (a director tells Dix that he "hasn't had a hit since before the war"), and some have pointed out that a big part of his internal demons deal with the fact that he's lived in a place that he clearly has no respect for for so long.
And again he went into service after that and then came back. We don't know how long he's worked there. Maybe a year then he went into service and then came back to do scriptwork. So not as long in any case.
In anycase Dix' problems can't be reduced to simple "internal demons" or that "it's Hollywood's fault he's messed up." The thing is Dix is STILL living there even if he hates the place(for good reasons). He is very much complicit in his own self-destruction and self-loathing. It's like Travis Bickle who always visits the seedier aspects of society only to call it and it's people "scum", to pray for a rain to wash them away. He goes there to feel superior to them and also because it will make him even more angry and hateful. Dix essentially hates Hollywood but continues to live in the place and society which only increases his misery and he certainly has a choice to go elsewhere.
The point about Dix is that Ray wanted to confront audiences with a character who could be an artist and a murderer but still be a good person you'd want to hang out with, but the fact is that he's quite disturbed. At the same time, he's disturbed for very good reasons and for his inability to confront it rationally, for actually being impotent despite his intelligence. In that respects, it's an essential Post-War film.
And concerning Mitchum, I really respect him as an actor and I liked him in Out of the Past, but I found the film a bore after the flashback ended.
Have you seen Pursued by Raoul Walsh? Out of the Past is a great film, for me. Mitchum's personality is just not an urban personality. Like his PI in the Tourneur film is clearly a city-guy or a drifter who works as a PI. The Lusty Men with Ray explores that as well. And then he incarnated the twisted madness of the American rural society in Laughton's first film.
"Don't teach your grandmother to suck eggs." - Nathanael West
I saw Robert Ryan in "On Dangerous Ground". Funny how he plays a similar character who works in a city and w/ people that he hates, & that fuels an out of control rage. When Ryan catches up with a criminal he's chasing and starts beating the crap out of him, he's utterly believable. You would not want to be cornered in an alley by Robert Ryan. And yet Ryan could play gentle, as in "The Setup".
I don't agree with a previous poster that Kirk Douglas was unlikeable. It was Douglas' charisma & likeability that made you root for him even when he played heels like "Champion" & "The Bad & the Beautiful".
Regarding Mitchum; a very underappreciated actor. I thought he was fine in "Not As A Stranger" which coincidently also had an appearance by Gloria Grahame.
And yet Ryan could play gentle, as in "The Setup".
And many other films.
I don't agree with a previous poster that Kirk Douglas was unlikeable. It was Douglas' charisma & likeability that made you root for him even when he played heels like "Champion" & "The Bad & the Beautiful".
I didn't clarify. What I meant was that Kirk Douglas' personality depended on his inherent unlikability. The badder he is, the more charming he can be. See Ace in the Hole along with that great Minnelli film.
Regarding Mitchum; a very underappreciated actor. I thought he was fine in "Not As A Stranger" which coincidently also had an appearance by Gloria Grahame.
Robert Mitchum is not an underppreciated actor. He is a GIANT among American film stars influencing countless actors of different kinds. Very modern as well. See The Lusty Men by the same director.
"Don't teach your grandmother to suck eggs." - Nathanael West
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Where did you get this information? I've read in director Nicholas Ray's biography that when the film stuck much closer to the source novel (where Dix is a serial killer/rapist) that John Derek would've played the part, but as the re-writes got farther and farther away and Dix become more human, Bogart was the only actor considered--after all, he was the producer.
Did he train you? Did he rehearse you? Did he tell you exactly what to do, what to say?!
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I thought every cook always wanted an omlette. No?
Nothing is more beautiful than nothing.
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Forgot to tell you afore that I think Bogart's best was "The Treasure of the Sierra Madre" -- the Mother Mountain. Superb in all departments and with no stinking badges -- one of the greatest and most referred to lines in film history. To me and mine "African Queen" is an overpraised cornball and I mean that with the deepest sincerity. Have a good nite and sleep tight in yer tidy whites, Mr. Joyboy.
Nothing is more beautiful than nothing.
I think his performance in Treasure... was undeniably great, but Dixon Steele is so much more contradictory and complex than Dobbs; after all, Bogart had to allude to a man who a decent, talented man with deep internal demons--who could possibly be a murderer but you still sympathize with, which is much harder to accomplish than the fatalistic journey Dobbs goes through. So that's what takes his performance in In a Lonely Place to the #1 Greatest of Bogart's Career for me.
And I find The African Queen to be charming, but woefully overrated and certainly not the role Bogart should've won his only Oscar for.
Did he train you? Did he rehearse you? Did he tell you exactly what to do, what to say?!
Well people prefer his work in The Treasure of Sierra Madre for largely the wrong reasons. That film was praised in it's day for being a complex, psychological...essentially for being arty. While a film about a Hollywood screenwriter on paper falls in line with the "Hollywood Insider Satire" genre.
Bogart's performance as Dixon Steele is innovative in that his character isn't really a "good guy" or a "bad guy" but at the same time he escapes even cliches of "anti-heros" and people who have "shades of gray" that have essentially become cliches as well owing to decades of bad screenwriting. It's a fully realized human character.
He's clearly unbalanced but at the same time he never loses his charm, wit and charisma in fact they are all inseperable from his character's violence. It's definitely more challenging than Sierra Madre.
"Ça va by me, madame...Ça va by me!" - The Red Shoes
Have any of you read the book? It's very different than the movie (big surprise!) and amazingly sexually explicit. Because the Code movies were so laudered, we sometimes forget that sex existed in the 30s, 40s, and 50s. I highly recommend the novel, if you can get your hands on it.
"Don't worry. I'm not on the side of the saints yet."
Have any of you read the book? It's very different than the movie (big surprise!) and amazingly sexually explicit.
From what I read about the book, that the book is supposed to have Dixon Steele actually being a serial killer and the book is more about misogynic stalking of women I doubt that I'd be very interested in it. To me the film is more interesting in that it avoids labelling Dixon Steele and presenting him with a bow wrapped around him for audience to only react in certain ways.
Sometimes film adaptations can alter the content of the book for artistic reasons and this is one such case. Another similar case is Hitchcock's adaptation of Patricia Highsmith's Strangers on a Train where in the original book the Farley Granger character actually does go ahead with the deal forced on him by Robert Walker. Hitchcock makes the film into a morality play set in the middle-class society of Washington and creates a richer more interesting film.
Because the Code movies were so laudered, we sometimes forget that sex existed in the 30s, 40s, and 50s.
I am stymied and continue to be stymied by America's total ignorance of their own history and culture. Sex is all over the place in American cinema of the 30's, 40's and the 50's!!!
Sure they couldn't show two people going at it like cats and dogs graphically but it's there in the behaviour, the characters and the performances. More importantly the audiences of these films knew damn well how sexy the films were and the characters. They weren't naive, babes-in-the-woods that people think they are.
"Ça va by me, madame...Ça va by me!" - The Red Shoes
I hope that you weren't referring to me as ignorant. If you did, you completely missed my point. I know all about sex that being slipped into movies under the Code; I didn't just fall off the turnip truck. What I was obviously talking about was explicit sex, which has been commonplace in movies for decades now. I'd much rather have sex on the screen suggested than thrown in my face, and I'm happy that I've never witnessed Barbara Stanwyck and Fred MacMurray having intercourse in a kitchen sink, a la Michael Douglas and Glenn Close.
How can you tell if the movie is more interesting than the book, if you haven't read it? And just because the Dix of the movie ISN'T a serial killer, that doesn't mean that he ISN'T a misogynist.
Finally, how dare you accuse me of knowing nothing of my history and culture? Since you don't know me, I find that an enormously judgemental statement. And nothing could be further from the truth.
"Don't worry. I'm not on the side of the saints yet."
Humphrey Bogart was only discovered as a leading man when he was already pushing forty. He was a "little too old" for every part he played so brilliantly after that. On the screen and in real life.
shareYou could definitely see how his cheekbones were beginning to sag. But as an earlier post noted, nobody else but Bogie could project the same degree of vulnerability, violence and almost self-loathing that Bogart managed to do so brilliantly.
shareas an earlier post noted, nobody else but Bogie could project the same degree of vulnerability, violence and almost self-loathing that Bogart managed to do so brilliantly.
Amen.
"She's television generation. She learned life from Bugs Bunny."
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