1950. Two genre-defining noirs follow Hollywood's postwar darkness to its logical conclusion by setting their stories among Tinseltown's decayed soul. Sunset Boulevard is one of Billy Wilder's expertly crafted closed loops, a vision of Hollywood as an empire not merely in decline but founded upon an ideal of constant obsolescence, locking its brightest luminaries into grotesqueries of opulent rot as fame left with age. Nicholas Ray's In a Lonely Place, however, is open-ended, going so far as to abandon its original tidy, if nasty, coda in favor of a grim ambiguity that suggests cycles broken into new and even more terrifying iterations.

Ray films Hollywood not from its rotten core but its desiccated, metaphorical outskirts. It gets underway in a…

"Yesterday, this would've meant so much to us. Now it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter at all."

Bogart's wry charm is transformed into something much more toxic here, a supposed carelessness born from such deep-rooted insecurity that his character's toxic, repressed rage almost becomes a character in and of itself. This performance is somehow matched by Grahame's, who's expert navigation of the film's central arc turns what in anyone else's hands might be turgid melodrama into operatic tragedy.
Ray continually singles in on the melancholy, the sadness and the raw sense of longing which seems to permeate every fleeting glimpse of human connection we see on screen. When these small moments of hope eventually sour, it feels like the cinematic…

I liked this a lot more on a second viewing. Fantastic performances by both Graham and Bogart. Although I've seen the film before I forgot if Dixon Steel actually was guilty of the initial murder and Bogarts, at times cynical, at times maniacal, portrayal of the eccentric screenplay writer kept me guessing until the very end. In one scene he "directs" the reenactment of the killing and as the darkness around him seems to grow darker and darker, his lit face, crazy eyes and rotten teeth bespeak of a psychotic pleasure. He's absolutely right when he says to Laurel: "You know, you're out of your mind. How could anybody like a face like this?"
I really enjoyed Ray's direction, as…

The main character’s name is “Dix Steele” and I chuckle every time someone says that.

Dix Steele is a MANLY man who is DEADLY SERIOUS and charming and women just love him and stand on their balconies in negligees just so that he’ll see them.

DIX STEELE is a MANLY man who invites women over to his place and takes off his clothes and puts on a robe and has them read books to him and then calls them a cab to get home and then goes to bed ALONE only to be framed for murder.

Dix Steele is a MANLY screenwriter who knows more about crime and murder than the lead detective on the case. He’s so capable that…

Challenge — Criterion Collection
Ranked — Criterion Collection

"One day I'll surprise you and write something good."

The American film-noirs of the 40s and 50s have always struck me as the films that cut through the most from that era; they still feel dated (in a good way) but the best of them also seemed way ahead of their time. Key example: In a Lonely Place. The movie's views on women and domestic violence are definitely complicated, but the attempt to create a conversation about a man's true motives and potential seediness definitely deserves attention.

The movie lures you in like you'd expect: Humphrey Bogart is handsome and charming beyond belief, tossing out little one-liners of gold every time he's…