By the time the 1950s began, American moviegoers were more than a touch familiar with the most well-worn routines of the genre that would be later known as film noir. So In a Lonely Place, a Nicholas Ray directorial effort, decided to play on this familiarity in a clever manner. This brilliant feature lulls the viewer into thinking they know every step of its story by, at first, playing itself as a straightforward film noir, right down to casting film noir legend Humphery Bogart in the lead role. But around the midpoint in the story, In a Lonely Place pulls the rug out of from under the viewer and subverts expectations over who and what this movie is really about. A traditional film noir, this is not, and In a Lonely Place is all the better for that!
As our story, which is based on a book of the same name by Dorothy B. Hughes, begins, the focus is squarely on Dixon Steele (Humphery Bogart), a Hollywood screenwriter in the middle of a creative slump. As we're introduced to him in a sequence showing him interact with friends and enemies at a bar, Dixon Steele seems to be fitting the typical troubled film noir protagonist archetype to a tee, right down to his aggressive behavior that seems par for the course for these kinds of morally murky characters. While at this bar, Dixon Steele asks a young girl named Mildred Atkinson (Martha Stewart) to come home with him and recount to him the plot of a book he has to adapt into a script.
Atkinson leaves Steele's place in the middle of the night and the next morning, Steele learns that, shortly after leaving his humble abode, she was murdered. Steele maintains his innocence to cops who are so convinced he's the killer that only the testimony of his neighbor, Laurel Gray (Gloria Grahame), is able to get him free from police custody. After she saves him, Laurel and Dixon begin to fall in love, leading to Dixon's creative resurgence while the cops nag at him in their search for the killer of Mildred Atkinson. At this point, one can easily imagine what the story must be from here, Laurel and Dixon will likely work together to bring the actual killer to justice and fall deeper in love all the while.
Except In a Lonely Place brilliantly shifts the role of protagonist over to Laurel Gray for the second-half of the runtime as the plot becomes focused on her growing more and more unsure over whether or not the man she loves is actually innocent or not. Suddenly, a greater level of attention is played to the toxic qualities of Steele's demeanor that had previously been treated in a throwaway manner to intentionally mimic how typical film noirs approach such behavior. Instead of being played as a wish-fulfillment fantasy for male viewers who want to behave in abhorrent ways without suffering consequences, Steele's most violent traits are now depicted in a visceral manner that has Gray questioning who this man is.
It's an absolutely incredible narrative move from so many different angles, including the way it deconstructs conventional behavior of film noir protagonists and in how much unbearable suspense it generates as the movie goes on. Each new scene just makes Laurel's Gray look even more trapped, especially since the film deftly depicts how the people around Steele excuse his toxic behavior. It's a tremendously well-done narrative turn that takes an already intriguingly shot and acted film noir to a whole other level of quality. Such an achievement wouldn't be possible, of course, if lead actor Humphery Bogart didn't deliver such outstanding work playing a pastiche of the kind of characters that made him famous in the 1940s.
Turns out Bogart is just as good at playing subversions of Sam Spade as he is at playing the real deal. Bogart convincingly sells Dixon Steele in the first half of In a Lonely Place as a traditional but entertaining troubled film noir protagonist, thus making his detour into far more overtly malicious behavior in the second half of the story all the more thrilling to watch. It's astonishing to watch Bogart, a man who sells charm so effortlessly in many of his best roles, be so adept at being utterly terrifying, an accomplishment he achieves by evoking real-life abusive individuals clearly in his performance. Bogart's depiction of violent behavior always has both feet firmly and eerily placed in reality and that facet of his excellent performance ensures that, by the time the somber ending arrives, just the mere presence of Bogart as Dixon Steele in a room is enough to send a chill up your spine. One of Humphery Bogart's very best performances (and boy is that saying something!) really helps to sell the already fascinating story structure of the outstanding subversive film noir In a Lonely Place.
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