In a Lonely Place

"I love you, but I'm afraid of you." I completely understand this line hearing it from sweet Gray’s lips. I also love Bogart and wouldn’t like to meet him in a dark alley. In a Lonely Place was shot in 1950 – a year which brought among other things the now classic satires concerning the situation in American show business: Sunset Boulevard and All about Eve. At the beginning it seems that this movie is going the same direction. The behind the scenes of Hollywood which serves not only as a cheap backdrop that makes the plot more attractive seem ideal for that. But it doesn’t happen (even though the filmmakers couldn’t resist a couple of digs). In the end it is “just" a fabulous study of a relationship. The cornerstone of the movie is a great screenplay, very daring in its day and very disturbing (even now). But this couldn’t have worked without the excellent actors and the famous chemistry between them. And there is so much of it that I honestly don’t know how it is possible that the celluloid never dissolved during projection. Even they way the main characters looked at each other when they meet at the police station... You don’t see things like that on the screen anymore. Gloria Grahame wraps you around her finger thanks to her charms in a matter of seconds and her acting makes her more than an equal partner to Bogart and one of the best performances of his career. He is so chillingly precise throughout the whole movie in his role of an intelligent beast that you can’t help thinking that he is playing himself a bit. The final ten minutes when the acting performances are climaxing hand in hand with the screenplay until the inevitable finale are a chapter in themselves. And it’s not only the ending where the quality of this movie lies. Not at all, the film is great all the way through the whole hour and a half of its running time. (08/04/2008)

Great Humphrey Bogart carries this seemingly B-movie crime drama on his shoulders, which surprisingly has a good and suspenseful (read unclear) plot revolving around a man who may or may not be crazy. Humphrey played him so perfectly that at times, you will truly be chilled by how he behaves and acts. (23/10/2014)